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Copyright  1898 

BY  Charles  de  Kay 


TO  THE  MEMORY  OF 

JAMES  ELLSWORTH  DE  KAY 

AUTHOR    OF 

^^The  Zoology  of  the  State  of  Nenjj  Tori" 


PREFACE 

■  i^ARLY  men  endowed  with  keen  faculties 

^~^     of  observation  found  the  regular  return 

of  birds  to  their  haunts  mysterious.     A  closer 

watch  on  their  habits  revealed  a  forethought, 

a  method,  a  genius  for  work,  an  industry  that 

astound   the  naturalists    of  our   day ;    certain 

actions  of  birds  gave  the  men  of  old  warrant 

to  concede   them   powers   of  prophecy.     To 

vii 


Preface 

primitive  men,  and  to  men  long  after  civili- 
zation was  strong,  such  traits  and  powers 
suggested  beings  that  need  never  die ;  they 
readily  conceived  of  souls  as  birds  and  birds 
as  supernatural  creatures. 

In  the  study  of  man's  groping  toward  re- 
ligious belief  one  factor  has  been  much  neg- 
lected :  the  influence  of  birds  and  beasts  on 
what  may  be  called  prehistoric  religion.  Yet 
in  the  daily  life  of  primitive  men  and  savages 
these  were  and  are  as  important  as  more  strik- 
ing objects  in  the  sky,  such  as  sun,  moon  and 
stars,  rainbow  and  northern  light,  dawn  and 
sunset,  thunderstorm  and  the  winds.  Is  it 
not  a  fair  question  to  ask,  whether  the  primi- 
tive mind  did  not  first  invest  the  world  of 
animals  with  mystery,  because  they  are  objects 
near  at  hand,  within  their  limited  horizon,  and 
only  afterward  rise  to  the  point  of  grasping 
the  heavenly  bodies  as  beings  endowed  with 

supernatural  power  ? 

viii 


Preface 

In  his  work  on  the  origin  of  mythology 
(Berlin,  i860)  Dr.  Schwartz  contemplates  the 
movement  as  one  from  heaven  to  earth,  as 
if  men  worshipped  the  heavenly  phenomena 
first,  then  brought  them  to  earth  and  personi- 
fied them  in  animals.  His  favorite  example 
is  the  lightning,  symbolized  as  dragon  or 
snake.  Might  not  the  movement  have  been 
the  other  way  ? 

The  tracks  of  the  worship  of  birds  and 
beasts  are  much  dimmer,  more  overlaid  by 
worship  of  larger  things.  The  spirits  and  gods 
perceived  in  celestial  and  atmospheric  bodies 
are  of  a  loftier,  more  civilized  sort,  more  truly 
godlike ;  while  those  that  retained  their  bird- 
like or  animal  characteristics  have  come  down 
to  us  very  often  in  the  lower  form  of  demi- 
gods or  heroes.  Adam  of  Bremen  says  that 
the  Lithuanians  sacrificed  unblemished  slaves 
to  dragons  and  birds ;  under  dragon  we  find  the 

fire-breathing  winged  creature,  a  transition  from 

ix 


Preface 

the  simple  bird  to  a  more  complex  creature 
representing  lightning,  tempest  and  the  sun. 

Odd  enough  to  arrest  the  attention,  at  least, 
that  many  gods,  goddesses,  and  demigods  in 
Greek  and  Roman  mythology  have  certain 
birds  or  beasts  connected  with  them,  without 
obvious  reason  for  such  association !  And  if 
one  looks  at  the  mythology  and  religious  sys- 
tems, the  epics  and  legends  of  other  peoples, 
not  excepting  the  Judaeo-Christian,  one  finds 
a  similar  condition  of  things,  varying  in  degree 
of  clearness.  Even  Christianity  retains  the 
dove  associated  with  the  Holy  Ghost,  the 
eagle,  bull  and  lion,  emblems  of  evangelists ; 
other  instances  will  occur  to  readers  of  the 
New  Testament. 

I  wish  to  call  attention  to  remains  in  the 
early  lore  of  Europe  of  a  very  extensive 
connection  of  birds  with  gods,  pointing  to  a 
worship  of  the  bird  itself  as  the  living  repre- 
sentative of  a  god,  or  else  to  such  a  position 


Preface 

of  the  bird  toward  a  deity  as  to  fairly  permit 
the  inference  that  at  a  period  still  more  remote 
the  bird  itself  was  worshipped.  One  may  only 
guess  how  near  the  primitive  Europeans  of 
that  period  were  to  the  condi- 
tion of  the  savage  to-day  who 
worships  the  bird  which  is  the 
totem  of  his  clan,  and  never 
slays  it  save  on  certain  occa- 
sions when  its  death  is  accompanied  by  reli- 
gious rites. 

I  follow  in  mythology  and  epic  poetry  and 
legends  the  traces  of  certain  birds,  the  eagle, 
the  swan,  the  woodpecker,  the  cuckoo,  the 
owl,  the  peacock,  the  dove,  and  try  to  show 
how  their  peculiarities  and  habits,  observed 
by  primitive  man  with  the  keenness  of  savages, 
have  laid  the  foundation  for  certain  elements 
in  various  religions  and  mythologies,  and 
sometimes  furnished  through  the  peculiarities 

of  the  creature's  habits  or  character  the  skele- 

xi 


Preface 

ton  plots  on  which  a  host  of  legends  and 
tragedies  have  been  built  by  the  imagination 
of  poet-priests  and  poet-historians  of  the  early 
days. 

I  hope  to  have  opened  up  some  new  vistas 
into  the  meaning  of  various  figures  on  classic 
ground  —  Venus,  Pan,  Pallas  Athene,  Picus, 
Kuknos,  Sappho,  Achilleus,  Odysseus,  Oidi- 
pous,  Orpheus,  -^neas  —  and  at  the  same  time 
thrown  light  on  leading  figures  in  the  great 
epics  of  the  world  — the  Iliad  and  Odyssey,  the 
Mahabharata,  the  Shah  Nameh,  the  Kalevala 
and  Kalevipoeg  —  and  upon  various  characters 
used  by  the  playwrights  of  Greece  in  their 
most  famous  dramas. 

There  seems  ever  more  reason  for  a  belief 
which  many  scholars  still  shrink  from  accept- 
ing, namely,  that  the  living  races  of  Europe 
still  contain  in  their  compound  the  strains  of 
races  now  apparently  remote   or   only   found 

in  odd  corners  of  the  world.     It  becomes  ever 

xii 


Preface 

harder  to  believe  the  stories  of  old  historians 
about  the  eradication  of  subject  races  by  con- 
querors on  any  large  scale  ;  flight  on  the  part 
of  the  vanquished  must  have  been  usually 
followed  by  a  speedy  return,  with  consequent 
readjustment  of  the  population. 

The  Lapp,  the  Finn,  the  Turk,  for  example, 
are  not  confined  to  northeastern  Europe  and 
the  lands  by  the  Black  Sea  and  Bosphorus ; 
thej  are  everywhere  present  as  a  strain  in  the 
so-called  Aryan  races.  The  Kelt  exists  in 
Germany,  but  Germanized ;  the  ancient  Briton 
is  found  in  purest  Anglo-Saxondom.  Their 
tongues  are  gone,  leaving  more  or  less  traces 
behind,  which  philology  has  not  yet  begun  to 
disentangle ;  but  they  remain  as  important 
parts  of  the  ethnic  mixtures  which  call  them- 
selves by  various  rough-and-ready  names,  like 
English,  German,  French,  Italian,  Greek. 
Myths  and  old  beliefs  reveal  the  influence  of 

non-Aryan   races    on    Europe.     Physical    and 

xiii 


Preface 

mental  traits  contribute  to  show  that  their 
blood  still  prevails  in  their  old  habitats,  whence 
they  were  never  totally  expelled,  where,  on  the 
contrary,  they  remained,  to  gradually  mingle 
more  or  less  completely  with  their  conquerors, 
or  the  people  they  conquered.  For  often, 
as  in  the  raids  of  the  Huns,  it  was  the  ruder 
race  that  overcame  the  more  advanced.  Their 
presence  is  attested  by  place-names,  and  by 
names  of  gods  and  heroes,  as  well  as  by  other 
words  in  living  tongues  which  cannot  be  sat- 
isfactorily explained  by  "Aryan"  roots.  In 
some  cases  that  presence  is  attested  by  gram- 
matical peculiarities  belonging  to  the  non- 
Aryan  tongues. 

Gubernatis  says  with  great  truth  :  "  It  is  by 
no  means  true  that  the  ancient  systems  of  my- 
thology have  ceased  to  exist ;  they  have  only 
been  diffused  and  transformed."  And  he 
quotes,  from   Spiegel's   edition   of  Rasavahini 

of  India,  a  passage  which  directly  affirms  the 

xiv 


Preface 

worship  of  animals  and  assigns  a  reason  for  it : 
"  Even  the  beasts  remember  the  services  once 
rendered  them ;  and  when  we  implore  them 
they  do  not  desert  us,  for  they  know  what  has 
happened." 

While  drawing  attention  to  the  bird  gods  of 
ancient  Europe,  I  do  not  wish  to  be  accused 
of  allowing  one  theory 
to  run  away  with  me. 
No  one  can  be  more  con- 
scious that  many  threads 
unite  in  a  god  or  popu- 
lar hero.  I  do  not  con- 
tend that  all  gods  of  old 
were  bird  gods,  nor  even  that  the  popular 
conceptions  of  those  here  treated  were  built 
solely  from  the  traits  of  the  bird  in  question. 
Sometimes  two  birds  of  separate  natures  seem 
to  blend  in  one  god  or  hero,  as  when  he  gets 
his  name  from  one  bird,  but  some  of  his 
traits  from  another. 

XV 


Preface 

As  soon  as  the  bird  or  beast  became  hu- 
manized, many  other  influences  began  their 
play ;  reactions  took  place  which  sometimes 
ended  in  a  total  forgetful ness,  on  the  part 
of  worshippers,  as  to  the  origin  of  the  god 
or  hero,  and  the  relegation  of  the  bird  to  a 
symbol,  or  adjunct,  the  meaning  of  which  had 
become  completely  lost.  So  remote  might 
the  connection  become,  that  near  and  obvi- 
ous explanations  were  cast  aside  for  strained, 
fantastic  etymologies.  Such  was  the  fate  of 
the  hero-demigod  Cuchullaind,  a  form  of  Fion 
of  Ireland  and  of  Vainamoinen  of  Finland. 
Amongst  other  curious  developments  in  forms 
like  these  I  oflfer  an  explanation  of  that 
strangest  of  fancies  among  savage  and  primi- 
tive men,  the  couvade;  I  am  not  aware  that 
its  origin  has  ever  been  satisfactorily  pointed 
out  before. 

While  a  realization  of  the   presence  in  the 

ethnic  mixtures  of  Europe  and  America  of 

xvi 


Preface 

races  now  despised  may  occasion  some  twinges 
to  the  pride  of  the  "  Aryan  "  or  the  "  Cauca- 
sian "  (obsolete  term  !)  and  while  the  certainty 
that  religions  of  the  highest  grade  have  passed 
through  lowly  stages  of  growth  is  not  favorable 
to  intellectual  hauteur,  nay,  is  painful  to  de- 
vout believers,  yet  such  conclusions  may  at 
least  have  some  compensation,  by  causing  us 
to  feel  the  solidarity  of  mankind,  by  begetting 
in  us  charity  toward  those  who,  by  the  widest 
stretch  of  courtesy,  cannot  be  included  in  the 
aristocracy  of  the  Aryan  and  the  Semite. 
After  all,  even  those  who  are  not  heirs  to 
the  religions  of  Moses,  Buddha,  Christ,  or 
Mohammed  are  men  !  It  can  do  no  harm  to 
recall  once  more  that  our  remote  ancestors 
were  immersed  in  the  same  sea  of  superstitious 
fears  that  make  the  life  of  lowly  races  a  con- 
stant struggle  with  nightmares  and  urge  them 
to  crimes  from  which  a  natural  kindly  instinct 

revolts. 

xvii 


Preface 

Again,  recollection  of  what  our  ancestors 
thought  of  birds  and  beasts,  of  how  at  one 
time  they  prized  and  idealized  them,  may 
induce  in  us,  their  descendants,  some  shame 
at  the  extermination  to  which  we  are  consign- 
ing these  lovable  but  helpless  creatures,  for 
temporary  gains  or  sheer  brutal  love  of  slaugh- 
ter. The  sordid  men  who  swept  from  North 
America  the  buffalo,  the  gentlemen  who  brag 
of  moose  and  elephants  slain,  the  ladies  who 
demand  birds  for  their  hats  and  will  not  be 
denied,  the  boys  who  torture  poor  feathered 
singers  and  destroy  their  nests,  are  more  ruth- 
less than  the  primeval  barbarians.  The  latter 
stayed  their  hands  at  times  through  religious 
scruples,  even  though  their  stomachs  might 
be  empty.  The  marvellous  tale  of  the  share 
birds  have  had  in  the  making  of  myth,  religion, 
poetry  and  legend  may  do  somewhat  to  soften 
these  flinty  hearts  and  induce  men  to  establish 
and  carry   out   laws   to   protect  especially  the 


Preface 

birds.  Unless  this  is  done,  and  done  speedily, 
the  whole  earth  will  soon  become  a  desert 
without  melody,  given  over  to  the  insect 
world,  like  some  lands  about  the  Mediter- 
ranean, where  no  wild  animal  can  exist  and 
no  gracious  bird  dares  to  raise  its  cheering 
song. 


XIX 


0:>r)-fen^S 


Page 

Dedication iii 

Preface vii 

Contents xxi 

List  of  Decorations xxiii 

Chap.       I      **The  Douve  with  her   Eyen 

Meeke" 3 

Chap.      II     Pious  the  Woodpecker ...  25 

Chap.  Ill  The  Cuckoo  Gods  ....  53 
Chap.    IV     The   Couvade  in  Ireland   and 

Persia 88 

Chap.  V  Paan  the  Peacock  .  .  .  .  I2I 
Chap.    VI     *''Tis    nothing    but    a     little 

Downy  Owl "      .     .      .  149 

Chap.  VII     "I  swear  by  the  Swan"  .      .  179 

Chap.  VIII     The  Bird  of  Fire  and  Lightning  210 


Index 


231 


Title-page i 

Dedication iii 

HalfTitle v 

Preface.     Head  and  Tail  Pieces,  two  Vignettes  vii 

Contents,  with  Vignette xxi 

List  of  Decorations,  with  Vignette     ....  xxiii 

Heading,  the  Ringdove 3 

Tailpiece  and  two  Vignettes 24 

Heading,  the  Woodpecker 25 

Tailpiece, the  Crow,  and  three  Vignettes      .     .  5a 

Heading,  the  Cuckoo 53 

Vignette,  the  Raven 81 

Tailpiece,  the  Hoopoe,  and  two  Vignettes  .     .  87 

Heading,  Pigeon  and  Pine-cones        .      .            .  88 

Vignette,  the  Vulture 103 

Tailpiece,  the  Vulture-Demon,  and  two  Vignettes  120 

Heading,  Paan  the  Peacock 121 

Tailpiece  and  two  Vignettes 148 

Heading,  the  Owl 149 

Vignette,  the  Cock 159 

Vignette,  the  Owl 175 

Tailpiece,  and  two  Vignettes 178 

Heading,  the  Swan 179 

Vignette,  the  Heron 200 

Tailpiece,  the  Stork,  and  two  Vignettes       .     .  209 

Heading,  the  Eagle 210 

Vignette,  the  Peacock 220 

Endpiece,  and  two  Vignettes 229 

Heading  to  Index 231 

Tailpiece 249 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 


CHAPTER   I 

"  There  was  the  Douv'e  with  her  Eyen  Meeke  ** 

I  SHALL  never  forget  the  first  wild  pigeon 
I  shot.  It  was  in  a  grove  near  Lenox 
where  I  found  the  lovely  bird,  brave  in  its 
nuptial  plumage  and  ignorant  of  the  ruthless- 
ness  of  a  boy  with  the  first  gun  he  ever  called 
his  own  in  his  hands.  Against  the  dark  trunk 
of  a  pine-tree  the  pigeon  was  a  shining  mark 
and  it  allowed  me  to  come  within  gunshot 
before  showing  signs  of  uneasiness.  The  beau- 
tiful colors  of  its   neck  only  made  me  more 

3 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

eager  to  lay  it  low;  its  musical  plaint,  as  it 
called  to  its  mate,  did  not  charm  my  savage 
breast.  I  fired.  As  the  creature  fell  like  a 
piece  of  clay,  I  bounded  forward  with  a  wild 
joy  at  my  prowess  and  picked  up  the  still 
quivering  body  from  the  carpet  of  pine-needles 
where  it  lay. 

Then  I  was  sorry.  Not  that  I  at  all  realized 
the  enormity  of  the  act.  Not  that  I  dreamed 
that  I  should  live  to  see  this  exquisite,  inno- 
cent, useful  creature,  and  a  hundred  other 
species  of  songsters,  insect-eaters,  warblers 
gone  from  the  woods  and  fields  they  enlivened 
and  benefited,  massacred  by  thousands,  netted, 
their  nests  robbed  and  destroyed,  their  colonies 
annihilated !  But  for  a  moment  I  had  a  glim- 
mer of  the  truth.  Because  it  was  thought  by 
other  boys  manly  to  have  a  gun  and  hit  to 
kill,  because  thousands  of  men  boasted  of  the 
"  bags  "  they  had  made,  I  was  doing  the  same 
thing,  destroying  for  the  sake  of  slaughter 
without  the  sting  of  necessity.     Even  then  it 

4 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

struck  me  that  the  bird  I  had  seen  the  moment 
before  resplendent  in  the  sun  was  no  longer  so 
beautiful.  Its  feathers  seemed  to  fall  from  the 
limp  body  at  a  touch.  Its  eye,  that  was  lustrous 
when  I  picked  it  up,  was  glassed  and  tarnished. 
Had  it  not  been  for  a  silly  pride  which  forbade 
me  going  home  empty-handed,  I  should  have 
dug  a  hole  and  covered  up  my  bird,  dimly 
conscious  that  I  had  done  a  wrong. 

Probably  it  was  a  clearer  idea  of  what  lay  at 
the  bottom  of  this  obscure  repulsion  that  made 
me  indifferent  to  shooting,  whilst  liking  nothing 
in  the  world  so  much  as  haunting  woods  and 
streams,  watching  wild  beasts  and  birds  and 
reading  books  on  natural  history.  But  the 
strain  of  life  soon  took  hold  on  me  and  left 
little  leisure  for  such  things.  The  old  love  for 
animate  creation  followed  me,  however,  among 
ancient  and  outlandish  languages.  Perhaps 
that  is  why  I  have  found  in  strange  corners 
of  mythology  and  philology  various  clews  to 
odd  phenomena  among  ancient  myths. 

S 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

Why,  I  asked  myself,  should  certain  birds 
have  been  allotted  to  certain  gods  and  god- 
desses in  the  Greek  and  Roman  mythology? 
Why  should  the  eagle  go  with  Zeus,  the  pea- 
cock with  Hera,  the  dove  with  Venus,  the 
swan  with  Apollo,  the  woodpecker  with  Ares, 
the  owl  with  Pallas  Athene? 
It  could  not  be  mere  chance 
that  so  many  gods  and  god- 
desses had  each  their  attendant 
bird;  the  attribution  was  too 
regular ;  it  was  done  too  much  on  a  system. 
What  was  the  original  meaning  of  it  all  ? 

Aphrodite,  drawn  in  a  chariot  to  which  doves 
are  harnessed,  is  the  goddess  of  spring,  of  that 
season  when  the  male  dove  shines  in  his  finest 
feather  and  makes  himself  even  more  ardent  in 
his  courtship  than  before.  She  is  the  goddess 
of  love-making.  Doves  are  forever  making 
love  and  caressing  each  other,  Chaucer  speaks 
of  "  the  wedded  turtil  with  her  hearte  trewe." 
The  male  struts  and  cooes  and,  unrebufFed  by 

6 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

her  indifference,  follows  closely  his  beloved. 
So  the  bird  is  by  its  nature  and  habits  well 
fitted  to  be  the  attendant  and  symbol  of  love 
and  the  goddess  of  love  —  better  fitted  indeed 
than  the  sparrow,  which  is  sometimes  given  to 
Venus,  because  of  its  demonstrative  amative- 
ness,  but,  owing  to  its  quarrelsome  disposition, 
is  much  less  appropriate  than  the  dove.  It  is 
the  gentle  disposition  of  the  dove  that  may 
have  helped  to  influence  the  earliest  Christians 
to  make  use  of  the  dove  as  a  symbol  of  peace 
and  good-will  to  men,  in  contrast  to  the  rapa- 
cious bird  of  Jove  and  the  sinister,  bloodthirsty 
little  attendant  on  Minerva.  But  neither  the 
early  Christian  use  of  the  dove  as  an  emblem, 
nor  the  pagan  way  of  placing  it  as  a  symbol 
beside  Venus,  explains  to  satisfaction  what  such 
an  alliance  meant. 

There  is  mournfulness  in  the  cry  of  the  dove 
and  there  was  a  funereal  use  of  the  dove  as  a 
symbol  of  mourning,  if  not  distinctly  of  the  life 
beyond  the  grave.     Aphrodite  herself  and  the 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

worship  of  Venus  seem  just  the  opposite  of 
death ;  moreover  it  is  very  hazardous  to  imagine 
that  to  any  wide  or  popular  extent  among  the 
old  peoples  such  an  idea  could  find  entrance 
as  that  the  giving  of  life  includes  the  taking 
away  of  life,  and  therefore  that  a  goddess  of 
fertility  includes  the  idea  of  a  goddess  of  death. 
Such  abstract  ideas  were  undoubtedly  familiar 
to  philosophers  at  remote  epochs,  but  what  is 
doubtful  is  the  possibility  of  a  general  use  of 
any  symbol  representing  such  ideas  among  the 
people. 

Italy  seems  to  have  retained  some  of  the 
earliest  ideas  common  to  the  myths  of  Greece, 
Asia  Minor  and  the  ^gean  Islands,  just  as  it 
affords  some  of  the  earliest  alphabets  of  the 
^gean  region  which  have  disappeared  from 
the  East.  One  might  readily  argue  that  before 
the  Greek  tribes  took  possession  of  Greece  and 
the  Etruscans  of  large  parts  of  Italy  the  great 
peninsulas  which  form  those  two  countries, 
together  with  most  of  the  islands,  were  inhab- 

8 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

ited  by  a  race  somewhat  homogeneous.  We 
learn  to  call  these  earlier  swarms  the  Pelas- 
gians  —  a  name  wherein  some  old  critics  have 
guessed,  by  the  common  interchange  of  r  with 
Sy  the  word  Pelargians,  or  the  people  of  the 
storks ;  and  they  have  given  gratuitously  the 
explanation  that  the  Pe- 
lasgians  were  so  called 
because  they  were  of 
a  roving  nature  and 
came  and  went  like  the 
storks. 

However  that  might 
have  been  —  and  the  absolute  impossibility 
of  the  explanation  will  be  greatly  weakened 
when  we  find  bird  names  under  many  famous 
names  of  gods  —  we  know  that  a  section  of 
the  Pelasgians  or  Pelargians  was  in  alliance 
with  Priam  of  Troy  and  that  in  the  Greek 
period  many  were  still  living  in  Epirus  about 
Dodona  —  the  famous  place  for  oracles  deliv- 
ered through  the  sounds  of  an  oak  grove  and 

9 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

of  doves  sacred  to  Zeus,  who  was  called  Pe- 
lasgic  in  consequence. 

It  is  at  Dodona  that  the  dove  appears  in 
human  form  and  thus  gives  us  one  clew  to  its 
connection  with  Venus. 

The  prophetesses  at  Dodona  told  Herodotus 
that  two  black  doves  flew  from  Thebes  in 
Egypt;  one  went  to  Libya,  where  it  caused 
the  oracle  of  Jupiter  Ammon  to  be  founded ; 
the  other  to  Dodona.  The  latter  settled  in 
an  oak-tree  and  spoke  with  a  human  voice 
"saying  that  it  was  necessary  that  a  prophetic 
seat  of  Zeus  should  be  established  in  that 
place."  Herodotus  would  not  believe  this 
crude  legend ;  he  explains  that  the  doves  were 
women  of  Egypt,  sold  by  Phoenicians  into 
Libya  and  Epirus.  They  were  called  birds 
by  the  natives,  because  they  could  not  speak 
the  language ;  but  when  they  had  learned  the 
speech  of  their  captivity  they  were  said  to 
have  spoken  with  human  tongues.  "  So  long 
as  she  spoke  a  barbarian  tongue,  she  seemed 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

to  them  to  be  uttering  voice  like  a  bird:  for 
if  it  had  been  really  a  dove,  how  could  it 
speak  with  a  human  voice  ? "  Apparently  Her- 
odotus was  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  parrots 
and  ravens  reproduce  the  articulate  sounds  of 
men.  We  may  be  sure  that  his  informants 
were  wrong  in  attributing  the  origin  of  Do- 
dona,  its  oak  and  doves,  to  Egypt,  for  there 
are  too  many  analogies  for  just  such  things 
in  Asia  and  northern  Europe. 

Since  Dodona  was  an  ancient  oracle  of  the 
inhabitants  of  Epirus  and  Thessaly  before  the 
Greeks,  we  may  consider  its  legends  Pelasgian 
rather  than  Greek.  The  northern  nations  who 
from  time  to  time  sent  offerings  wrapped  in 
wheaten  straw  to  the  fane  of  Apollo  on  Delos 
caused  their  envoys  to  cross  the  Adriatic  and 
deliver  up  the  gifts  at  Dodona.  Thence  they 
were  sent  to  the  Maliac  Gulf  and  passed  from 
city  to  city  on  to  Delos.  The  stop  at  Dodona 
shows  a  connection  between  the  north  of 
Europe    and    the    Pelasgians.      Oracles    were 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

given  at  Dodona  not  only  from  the  sound  in 
the  oak-tree  but  the  voices  of  doves. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  grove 
at  Dodona  was  a  primeval  spot  sacred  to 
divinities  much  ruder  than  Zeus  and  Aphrodite 
his  daughter.  In  the  time  of  Herodotus  it 
was  the  fashion  to  trace  everything  to  Egypt ; 
we  must  look  the  other  way  for  traces  of  sim- 
ilar worship  among  the  peoples  of  middle  and 
northern  Europe,  among  the  Hyperboreans, 
as  the  Greeks  called  them.  And  so,  if  we 
take  the  old  Italian  name  of  Aphrodite,  Venus 
male  and  Venus  female  (for  Italy  had  both) 
we  discover  among  the  Finnic  nations  on  the 
Baltic  a  legend  in  the  Kalevala  of  the  old  god 
Vaino,  together  with  his  female  double  Aino, 
the  young  girl  who  spurns  him,  drowns  her- 
self— 

**Like  a  pretty  song-bird  perished  ** 

and    becomes   a   teasing   or   mournful   water- 
sprite,  according  to  the  mood  of  the  poet. 
After  she  has   returned  to  Aphrodite's  ele- 

12 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

ment  Vaino  sets  out  to  catch  her  with  his 
nets  and  fish  lines ;  she  allows  herself  to  be 
caught  in  the  shape  of  a  fish ;  but  just  as  he 
touches  the  fish  with  his  knife,  it  springs  over- 
board and  mocks  him  — 

I  am  not  a  scaly  sea-fish. 

Not  a  trout  of  northland  rivers. 

Not  a  whiting  from  the  waters. 

Not  a  salmon  of  the  northseas  ; 

I,  a  young  and  merry  maiden. 

Friend  and  sister  of  the  fishes, 

Youkahainen's  youngest  sister, 

J,  the  one  that  thou  dost  fish  for, 

I  am  Aino,  whom  thou  lovest. 

(Rune  V,  Crawford's  traftslation.) 

Venus  and  Vaino  are  both  of  them  born  of 
the  sea,  yet  children  of  the  great  gods  Zeus 
and  Ukko.  We  may  be  sure  that  the  people 
who  founded  the  oracle  at  Dodona  had  a  male 
and  female  parallel  to  the  male  and  female 
Venus  of  Italy  and  the  Vaino- Aino  pair  on 
the  Baltic.  Later  on  I  shall  argue  that  this 
god  must  have  been  Pan,  shown  by  the  parallel 

13 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

between  Pan-Syrinx  and  Vaino-Aino.  Mean- 
time the  connection  of  the  dove  with  Venus 
may  be  found  in  Greek,  where  a  name  for  the 
dove  is  oinas  —  in  all  likelihood  a  word  taken 
up  from  the  old  non-Aryan  peoples,  a  word 
having  nothing  to  do  with  wine  (oinos),  but 
with  the  bird  that  at  Dodona,  and  doubtless 
at  many  another  oak  grove,  was  once  identical 
with  a  deity. 

There  is  warrant  for  the  ground  that  many 
names  of  gods  were  assumed  by  the  Greeks 
proper  from  the  older  people  of  Greece,  whom 
they  more  or  less  perfectly  subjected.  After 
stating  that  the  Pelasgians  had  no  special 
names  for  gods,  a  statement  of  course  impos- 
sible, Herodotus  says  they  first  took  their 
god  names  from  Egypt,  but  afterwards  con- 
sulted the  oracle  at  Dodona,  fearing  lest  they 
had  done  wrong.  "  So  when  the  Pelasgians 
asked  the  oracle  at  Dodona  whether  they 
should  adopt  the  names  which  had  come  from 
the  barbarians,  the  oracle,  in  reply,  bade  them 

14 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

make  use  of  the  names.  From  this  time 
they  sacrificed,  using  the  names  of  the  gods ; 
and  from  the  Pelasgians  the  Hellenes  after- 
wards received  them."  It  was  natural  that 
Herodotus  thought  all  mythological  learning 
came  from  Egypt,  but  we  must  doubt  it.  The 
point  to  be  noted  is  the  tradition  in  Greece 
handed  down  by  him  that  god  names  came 
from  a  non-Greek  source. 

This  dove  name  oinas  is  found  not  only 
in  Venus  but  in  the  favorite  son  of  Venus, 
iEneas  of  Troy,  not  a  Trojan  but  an  ally  of 
Priam,  iEneas  is  therefore  the  dove  god 
humanized  and  made  a  heroical,  well-nigh  a 
historical  figure,  just  as  we  shall  see  that 
Achilleus  is  the  eagle  god.  But  we  should 
beware  of  thinking  of  these  gods  in  their 
relation  to  such  heroes  of  romance,  as  if  they 
were  the  gods  wrought  out  and  sublimated  to 
the  positions  the  Greeks  gave  Zeus  and 
Aphrodite.  The  stories  of  mythology  branched 
off  long  before  the  gods  attained  that  grandeur 

15 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

and  continued  until  all  memory  of  their  original 
connection  was  lost. 

The  other  Greek  word  for  pigeon  or  dove, 
peleia,  seems  to  be  of  Greek,  not  of  Pelasgic 
origin  like  oinas.  We  find  a  probable  meaning 
in  the  word  pelemizo,  to  quake,  quiver,  tremble. 
The  peleia  would  be  the  bird  that  quakes,  as 
one  sees  the  pigeon  or  wild  dove  quiver  when 
caught  or  while  dying  —  a  peculiarity  that  did 
not  escape  the  sharp  eye  of  Audubon.  This 
is  a  better  derivation  than  from  pel 6s,  dark, 
dusky,  ash-colored  ;  for  we  have  no  reason  to 
suppose  that  the  rock  pigeon  or  ringdove 
would  strike  the  eyes  of  early  men  as  espe- 
cially dusky  or  dark.  And  so  the  old  King 
Pelops,  whose  name  adheres  to  the  Pelopon- 
nesus, is  likelier  to  mean  "  Dove  face "  than 
"  Dark  face." 

Venus  of  the  lovely  form,  sweet  voice  and 
enchanted  necklace  is  therefore  not  merely 
from  the  poetic  standpoint  symbolized  by  the 
dove,  the  bird  that  draws   her  flower-studded 

i6 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

chariot  through  the  air.  Venus  was  the  dove 
itself  once  upon  a  time,  when  people  about 
the  Mediterranean  were  rising  from  the  stage 
when  they  could  conceive  of  bloodthirsty 
warrior-gods  only,  such  as  existed  on  the  Bal- 
tic down  to  the  Middle  Ages,  into  the  concep- 
tion of  gods  or  goddesses  with  lovable  traits, 
such  as  Pallas  Athene  and  Apollo  and  Aphro- 
dite. The  bird  that  the  Greeks  called  the 
"  quaker  "  formed  naturally  the  model  for  the 
sweet  love  goddess  who  fled,  trembling,  before 
the  spear  of  Diomedes  on  the  windy  plains 
of  Troy.  It  was  owing  to  his  irreverent 
treatment  of  Aphrodite  that  Diomedes  lost 
the  love  of  his  wife,  and,  on  his  voyage  to 
Italy  to  found  a  new  colony,  the  services  of 
his  men,  whom  the  vindictive  goddess  turned 
into  birds.  If  iEneas,  like  his  mother  Venus, 
seems  to  descend  mythologically  from  the 
dove,  Diomedes,  like  his  father  Tydeus  and 
his  patroness  Pallas  Athene,  seems  to  de- 
scend from  some  bird  of  prey  whose  war- 
2  17 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

like  nature  shows  in  the  name  Tydeus,  the 
striker. 

What  more  natural,  considering  the  preva- 
lence of  bird  worship  in  remote  days,  than  the 
offerings  of  doves  in  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem 
and  the  prominence  of  the  dove  at  Hierapolis, 
the  vast  temple  of  the  Syrian  goddess  described 
by  Lucian  ?  The  latter  has  left  on  record  that 
the  dove  was  not  eaten  at  Hierapolis ;  it  was 
a  sacred  bird ;  and  he  refers  to  a  legend  that 
Semiramis  was  turned  into  a  dove.  So  we  find 
the  Indians  of  a  clan  that  bears  the  name  of  a 
bird  or  beast  refusing  to  kill  that  bird  or  beast 
except  on  certain  occasions,  when  its  sacrifice 
becomes  a  religious  rite  and  the  harm  done  it 
is  neutralized  by  the  ceremony  and  appropriate 
prayers. 

Venus  retains  in  her  later  shape  some  bird- 
characteristics,  such  as  her  capture  in  the  golden 
net  made  by  her  husband,  who  for  contrast  is 
a  sooty  and  lame  god  of  the  forge.  The  swan 
and  the  sparrow  have  been  assigned  to  her  as 

i8 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

chariot  steeds  by  poets  of  antiquity  ;  but  the 
dove  is  evidently  the  true  bird  of  Venus ; 
other  birds  are  the  swallow,  because  of  its  inti- 
mate connection  with  spring  and  flowers,  and 
the  iynx,  a  magical  bird  used  for  one  ingredient 
of  love-philtres  and  potions.  And  in  her  son 
iEneas  certain  bird-traits  occur,  such  as  his 
bearing  his  father  Anchises  on  his  back,  which 
resembles  the  carrying  oflT  by  the  phoenix  of 
his  parent  bird.  The  connection  in  the  early 
history  of  Latium  between  JEneas  and  the  old 
King  Latinus,  son  of  Faunus,  must  belong  to 
the  most  remote  period,  antedating  the  legends 
about  Troy ;  because  iEneas  the  dove  hero  and 
Venus  the  dove  goddess  must  have  been  Italian 
as  well  as  Pelasgian  Greek. 

We  are  not  left  without  a  description,  such 
as  it  is,  of  the  dove  god  or  goddess  belong- 
ing to  the  "  Pelasgian "  or  non- Aryan  and 
probably  non-Semitic  peoples  of  Syria.  In 
Lucian's  time  the  priests  of  the  Syrian  goddess 
at  Hierapolis  preserved  a  golden  image  "  com- 

19 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

pounded  of  various  forms  "  which  was  taken 
with  great  solemnity  twice  a  year  to  the  sea- 
shore, probably  to  be  given  a  ritual  bath  ;  at 
any  rate  it  accompanied  the  priests,  who  went 
to  fetch  sea  water  twice  a  year.  Its  barbarous 
form,  which  Lucian  seems  to  hesitate  to  de- 
scribe, is  noteworthy  enough  ;  but  what  is  more 
interesting  yet  is  the  fact  that  it  bore  on  its 
head  the  figure  of  a  pigeon.  Composite  gods 
with  birds  on  their  heads  were  dug  up  in  the 
last  century  in  Mecklenburg  on  the  Baltic 
near  the  traditional  site  of  a  pagan  temple. 
But  the  bird  was  not  the  dove. 

We  are  safe  in  concluding  that  Dodona  was 
one  of  many  sacred  groves  seized  on  by  the 
Greeks  when  they  conquered  Greece  and  made 
over  into  their  own,  before  Zeus  was  evolved 
and  had  taken  the  place  of  the  old  god  similar 
to  Vaino  of  the  Finns  —  before  Aphrodite  the 
seaborn  had  dispossessed  a  goddess  similar  to 
the  Finnic  Aino  and  the  nymph  Syrinx.  Vaino 
himself  is  like  Venus  in  his  double  character  of 

20 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

minstrel  who  sings  the  joys  of  the  marriage 
festival  and  the  lamentations  for  the  dead ;  Plu- 
tarch says  that  Venus  presided  over  birth  and 
death.  Hence  the  use  of  doves  in  two  such 
opposite  scenes  as  marriage  and  funeral  feasts. 
The  Longobards  placed  over  the  graves  of  their 
people  wooden  slabs  with  doves  carved  on  top. 
In  England  the  pigeon  was  a  death-bird  and 
portent  of  the  grave ;  the  sick  man  who  had 
a  desire  to  eat  of  a  pigeon  was  supposed  to 
foretell  his  own  demise.  Yet  the  pigeon  also 
brings  good  luck.  In  Russia  it  was  once 
sacred  to  Perun  the  god  of  thunder,  and  had 
some  occult  power  to  extinguish  fires  ;  but  if 
one  should  fly  in  at  a  window  the  portent  was 
just  the  other  way ;  a  fire  might  be  expected. 
Living  pigeons  used  to  be  placed  on  the  head 
of  a  dying  man  in  order  to  attract  the  pain. 

Pan  of  Greece,  the  male  Venus  of  Italy  and 
Vaino  of  the  Finnic  tribes  have  a  represen- 
tative among  the  German  nations  who  was 
still  fresh  enough  in  the  memory  of  the  people 

21 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

during  the  Middle  Ages  to  have  found  his  way 
into  the  German  poets  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury. This  is  the  nature  god  Wunsch,  often 
mentioned  by  Hartmann  in  a  way  to  prove 
that  he  was  conceived  as  a  deity  like  Vaino, 
who  created  and  invented  things,  especially 
grain,  plants  and  flowers,  beauty  in  women 
and  children,  power  and  magical  strength  in 
men.  He  often  appears  where  we  might 
translate  his  name  by  Nature  or  Providence 
or  God,  but  more  specifically  he  is  a  god  of 
love  and  happiness  who  gives  to  men  what 
they  desire,  a  god  of  fortune,  as  the  female 
Venus  and  Aphrodite  were.  In  throwing  dice 
the  Venus  cast  was  the  lucky  cast.  To  say 
that  a  woman  had  the  figure  or  feet  of 
Wunsch  was  exactly  as  if  one  said  of  Venus. 
Yet  Wunsch  is  always  spoken  of  as  masculine. 
It  is  sad  to  think  that  the  boy  learning  to 
shoot,  the  feather  hunter  and  the  pot  hunter 
are  fast  rendering  our  woods,  fields  and  gardens 
tuneless  and  given  over  to  insects  destructive 

22 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

of  vegetables,  fruits  and  flowers.  The  Labra- 
dor duck,  of  which  large  flocks  were  to  be 
seen  in  winter  on  Long  Island  Sound  twenty 
years  ago,  is  an  extinct  bird,  although  protected 
for  most  of  the  year  by  its  habitat  on  the  open 
waters.  We  shall  soon  come  to  catching  the 
remnants  of  our  commonest  songbirds  to  place 
them  in  aviaries,  before  they  too  go  the  way  of 
the  Great  Auk  and  the  Labrador  duck.  And 
we  know  how  truly  Chaucer  wrote  in  the  "Tale 
of  the  Crow  "  as  to  the  bird  that  is  caged : 

Take  any  bird  and  put  it  in  a  cage. 

And  do  all  thine  intent  and  thy  courage 

To  foster  it  tenderly  with  meat  and  drink 

Of  all  the  dainties  that  thou  canst  bethink. 

And  keep  it  all  so  cleanly  as  thou  may  — 

Although  his  cage  of  gold  be  ne'er  so  gay. 

Yet  had  this  bird  by  twenty-thousand-fold 

Gone  eat  (of)  worms  and  such  (like)  wretchedness. 

Forever  this  bird  will  done  his  business 

To  escape  out  of  his  cage,  if  he  may. 

We  are  indeed  sinking  fast  into  the  condition 
of  Italy,  where  myriads  of  birds,  neither  large 

23 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

enough  nor  toothsome  enough  to  serve  as  food, 
are  slaughtered  wherever  and  whenever  they 
venture  to  rest  on  their  migrations  between 
Africa  and  northern  Europe.  The  men  who 
have  rooted  the  beautiful  white  egret  out  of 
Florida  are  pursuing  it  into  Venezuela  and 
Brazil.  If  some  stop  is  not  put  to  them,  they 
will  in  a  few  years  destroy  this  bird  from  the 
face  of  the  earth,  as  they  have  banished  it  from 
the  United  States. 


24 


N 


CHAPTER   II 

Picus  the  Woodpecker 

OT  many  miles  from  Berlin,  I  was  lying 
in  a  grove  with  my  back  propped 
against  an  oak,  when  I  heard  a  laugh,  a  quick, 
cackling  laugh  overhead.  I  knew  at  once  it 
was  a  woodpecker.  I  could  hear  through  the 
back  of  my  head  how  his  claws  rattled  against 
the  bark  as  he  made  his  way  up  the  trunk  and 

25 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

along  the  larger  branches  ;  my  mind's  eye  was 
aware  how  his  amazing  little  serpent  of  a 
tongue  was  darting  through  dark,  involved  bur- 
rows deep  in  the  wood  to  ferret  out  grubs  and 
beetles.  Presently  he  came  in  sight  on  an 
overhanging  limb.  He  scuttled  along  below 
the  branch  like  a  fly  on  a  ceiling.  Brave  in  his 
blood-red  hood  and  mottled  back,  he  turned  his 
bright  red  eye  sharply  this  way  and  that.  Sud- 
denly he  laughed  again;  an  echo  seemed  to 
return  it.  Then  he  paused.  Had  he  caught 
sight  of  me  and  recognized  man,  the  universal 
policeman,  tyrant,  murderer  ?  At  any  rate  he 
moved  on.  In  short  rapid  ups  and  downs  of 
flight  he  made  for  a  dead  tree  across  the  glade 
and  slipped  round  the  trunk  to  peep  at  me 
from  the  other  side. 

I  have  heard  Germans  say  that  the  wood- 
pecker bores  into  a  branch  and  then  scuttles 
round  on  the  opposite  side  to  see  if  the  hole 
has  gone  quite  through  !  Lucky  little  one,  to 
find  a  dead  tree  at  all,  considering  the  fanaticism 

26 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

of  the  native  forester,  the  fury  with  which  he 
hacks  down  any  tree  that  looks  decayed,  and 
thus  deprives  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Woodpecker  of  a 
spot  in  which  to  feed,  to  chisel  a  cave  for  their 
nest,  to  make  famous  music ! 

As  I  watched  him  and  he  watched  me,  a 
reminiscence  of  the  puzzle  and  maze  of  old 
Italian  myths  connected 
itself  with  this  bright  lit- 
tle chap  in  my  mind. 
The  bird  of  Mars, 
why  ?  Naturally,  be- 
cause of  his  blood-red 
hood  and  eye  like  the 
planet  Mars.  Also  was  he  the  bird  that 
played  the  part  of  raven  to  the  infant  Romu- 
lus, that  son  of  Mavors,  when  the  mother  wolf 
could  no  longer  supply  milk  to  him  and  his 
brother.  And  then  I  recalled  that  obscure  old 
god  Picus,  son  of  Saturn,  father  of  Faunus, 
grandfather  of  Latinus.  To  be  sure  !  Here 
he  was,  or  at  least  the  symbol,  totem,  animal 

27 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

representative  of  him.  But  why,  oh,  why 
did  the  ancient  Italiots  choose  just  this  bird, 
and  place  him  in  a  line  of  ancestry  that  vied 
with  and  perchance  claimed  precedence  of 
Jove  ? 

After  all,  I  reasoned,  what  do  we  really  know 
about  Greek  and  Latin  mythology,  despite  the 
centuries  during  which  we  have  been  pretend- 
ing to  study  the  classics  and  nothing  but  the 
classics,  seeing  it,  as  we  still  do  see  it,  through 
the  spectacles  of  ancient  writers  who  lacked  the 
wide  sweep  of  the  world's  literatures  and  the 
world's  humbler  races  to  obtain  materials  ex- 
tensive enough  from  which  to  make  compari- 
sons that  throw  light  ?  Although  the  men  of 
religion  in  their  day  were  not  so  hot  to  throttle 
knowledge  as  they  have  been  since,  perhaps 
because  they  were  not  so  deadly  sure  that  they 
knew  it  all,  and  that  theirs  was  the  only  way  to 
save  mankind,  nevertheless,  the  heathen  too 
were  influenced  by  fear  of  offending  the  pious. 
Some  have  broken  their  confidences  regarding 

28 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

myths  short  off  at  the  most  interesting  point, 
with  the  express  statement  that  they  are  forbid 
or  do  not  wish  to  tell  more.  Herodotus  the 
peerless  is  one  of  the  most  exasperating,  be- 
cause he  tells  so  much  concerning  the  world 
of  his  day  and  its  beliefs  that  one  can  scarce 
reconcile  one's  self  to  the  fact  that  he  refrained 
purposely  from  telling  more.  Pausanias  is  an- 
other. The  Eleusinian,  the  Orphic  mysteries 
—  why  not  have  thrown  a  few  rays  into  them  ? 
Doubtless  they  were  simple  enough  :  doubt- 
less it  was  the  very  homely  simplicity  of  the 
ideas  they  divulged  which  made  them  uncom- 
municable,  lest  the  priestly  fabrics  overhead 
should  by  that  simplicity  appear  feeble  and 
vain. 

So  here  was  the  prophetic  bird  beneath 
whose  graven  image  the  Sabines  asked  for 
answers  from  the  gods  !  There  he  clung  at 
end  of  a  dead  branch,  as  if  carved  against  a 
wooden  column,  like  the  pillar  Ovid  mentions 
with  a  picus  atop,  or  like  the  soapstone   birds 

29 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

that  Bent  found  in  the  ruins  of  Mashonaland, 
even  as  at  Matiena  in  Italy  the  enemies  and 
allies  of  the  Romans  figured  him.  And  then 
for  the  first  time  I  perceived  why  he  had  been 
selected  to  represent  the  god  of  thunder-clouds, 
before  the  Latins  knew  of  Zeus  and  other 
Greekish  gods.  In  some  way  that  I  could 
not  make  out  he  was  using  the  branch  as  a 
•drum  and  rolling  out  a  peal  that  must  have 
been  heard  a  mile. 

Since  then  I  have  learned  from  better,  more 
patient  observers  how  the  woodpecker  accom- 
plishes his  martial  music.  By  quick,  vigorous 
blows  of  his  beak  the  dead  branch  is  set  in 
vibration  ;  then  he  lays  his  hollow  beak  against 
the  vibrating  wood  to  add  resonance  to  the 
peal.  A  true  performer  on  the  xylophone, 
he  varies  his  drumming  by  springing  from 
one  branch  to  another  and  thus  gets  a  change 
of  note.  The  rolling  naturally  suggested 
thunder,  the  more  so  because  the  ancients 
thought  he  drummed  before  the  rain,  as  indeed 

30 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

may  be  the  case,  because  the  coming  rain  may 
lure  insects  out  and  abundance  of  food  may 
make  the  bird  livelier  in  his  efforts  to  please 
himself  and  his  mate.  Whence,  to  regard  him 
as  a  capital  bird  of  prophecy  and  place  him  at 
a  remote  epoch  as  the  visible  sign  of  a  god  of 
thunder,  was  but  a  step.  The  epoch,  we  must 
suppose,  was  prior  to  that  in  which  the  aris- 
tocracy of  gods  on  Olympus  had  turned  itself 
into  the  exclusive  set  it  afterwards  became. 

According  to  the  sounding  of  this  nature's 
drum,  the  auspex,  Druid,  Velleda,  rainmaker 
of  the  past  argued  what  was  to  be  the  turn 
of  the  weather  and  what  were  the  chances  of 
chase  and  war.  Till  well  down  to  present 
times  the  magicians  of  the  Lapps,  far  to  the 
north,  and  in  earlier  days  those  of  the  Finns 
and  Esthonians,  used  the  magic  drum  or  tam- 
bourine to  foretell  pleasure  or  pain,  luck  or 
evil,  with  a  very  distinct  recognition,  I  believe, 
of  the  analogies  between  drum,  woodpecker 
and  thunder  god.     In  this  century  the  Lapps, 

31 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

like  the  Samoyeds  and  other  tribes  of  Siberia, 
not  only  used  the  drum  for  incantations,  but 
foretold  coming  events  by  drawing  figures  on 
the  stretched  hide  of  the  drum  and  then  watch- 
ing the  course  taken  by  a  ring  laid  loosely  on 
the  hide,  as  the  vibration  of  the  drumming 
carried  it  toward  one  figure  or  the  other.  The 
probability  is,  that  before  Jupiter  was  known 
in  Italy  by  that  name,  the  worshippers  of  the 
great  god  Picus,  living  in  their  wicker  huts 
lives  not  so  very  unlike  those  of  Lapps  and 
Finns,  used  the  tambourine  for  magic  and 
prophecy,  just  as  some  of  these  Hyperboreans 
used  and  still  use  their  own  small  drum. 

National  vanity  has  made  sad  work  of  the 
study  of  the  past.  Men  of  science,  in  whom 
one  ought  never  find  that  a  blind  patriotism 
has  made  them  pervert  facts,  have  insisted  on 
the  superiority  of  their  own  people's  ancestry 
and  made  havoc  of  history.  German  archae- 
ologists have  claimed  Teutonism  wherever 
they  learned  or  imagined  that  one  nation  of 

32 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

the  past  overcame  another,  or  suspected  that 
some  special  virtue  characterized  a  people. 
The  national  claimant  has  been  a  scourge. 
Englishmen  have  had  the  most  absurd  ideas  of 
the  size,  wisdom,  valor  and  purity  of  Angles 
and  Saxons,  ignoring  the  parts  played  by 
Norman,  Briton  and  yet  earlier  races.  Welsh- 
men, Scots  and  Irishmen  will  not  listen  if  you 
point  to  traces  in  their  tongue,  history  and 
legends  of  nationalities  or  races,  at  present 
despised,  who  were  in  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland  before  the  Kelts.  They  have,  it  is 
true,  classic  models  ;  they  but  follow  in  the 
footsteps  of  the  Romans,  who  concocted  a 
past  that  was  full  of  magnificence,  although 
their  history  and  legends  show  that  they 
sprang  from  a  mixture  of  shepherds,  robbers 
and  outcasts.  Perhaps,  after  all,  yonder  wood- 
pecker is  wiser  than  we  know,  I  pondered. 
His  droll  gestures  and  bright  eye  seem  to  say 
that  he  is  aware  how  human  beings  have  made 
a  thunder-bird  of  him.  That  may  be  the  rea- 
3  33 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

son  why  he  bursts  every  now  and  then  into  a 
cackle ;  to  think  what  fools  these  mortals  be  ! 
It  was  not  the  Italiots  alone  who  used  to  wor- 
ship Picus  because  of  his  antics,  queer  voice 
and  rolling  drum.  The  Wotjaks  still  honor 
him  as  a  god.  A  few  centuries  ago  the  Estho- 
nians  and  Finns,  who,  history  says,  were  Chris- 
tianized in  the  12th  and  13th  centuries,  were 
seen  to  be  Christians  only  out  of  fear,  to  be 
still  quietly  worshipping  their  old  idols.  The 
Esthonians  kept  their  thunder  god  Pikker 
or  Pikne.  Could  we  resurrect  the  temple 
huts  filled  with  idols,  which  they  concealed  in 
lonely  woods,  we  should  certainly  see  wooden 
images  of  a  bird  god,  Pikker  the  woodpecker. 
He  is  no  other  than  our  mysterious  deity  of 
Italy,  Picus  the  father  of  Faunus.  This  is 
only  one  of  many  threads  that  connect  the 
Finnic  peoples  of  Russia  and  Siberia  with  the 
rustic  classes,  the  ancient  subject  races  of 
Italy,  ay,  and  of  Greece,  and  of  men  eastward 
beyond  the  iiEgean,  whose  faded  features  may 

34 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

be  detected  below  the  Aryan  and  Semitic 
overfloods. 

With  these  old  bird  gods  we  get  so  far  back 
into  the  past  that  the  difference  no  longer 
seems  great  between  the  populations  of  the 
various  continents.  We  are  tempted  to  imagine 
that  myths  and  legends  have  migrated  from 
one  people  to  another,  because  like  myths, 
like  legends,  are  found  in  countries  far  apart. 
Even  across  the  Atlantic  the  magic  drum,  the 
worship  of  beasts  and  birds,  such  as  the  bear, 
and  a  similar  woodpecker  with  a  scarlet  hood ; 
the  belief  that  stones  have  life  and  that  spirits 
can  inhabit  rocks,  suggest  at  first  a  connection 
by  communication. 

Sacrifice  of  beasts,  torture,  hanging  and 
burning  of  men,  head-hunting,  human  sacri- 
fices and  occasional  cannibalism  assimilate  the 
red  man  to  the  old  peoples  of  Europe  and 
bring  them  close  to  those  inflated  moderns 
whose  ancestors,  regarded  curiously,  are  seen 
to   have  indulged  in  all   these  pleasing  vaga- 

35 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

ries  of  the  human  soul  within  historic  times. 
Yet,  physically,  the  red  man  is  certainly  far 
removed  from  the  European ;  his  legends  and 
myths  are  practically  untouched  by  those  of 
any  other  continent.  We  must  get  out  of  the 
habit  of  supposing  that  if  a  legend  or  fairy- 
tale almost  exactly  like  one  from  Greek  or 
Latin  appears  in  northern  or  western  Europe, 
It  was  therefore  brought  from  Greece  or  Italy. 
More  easily  could  it  have  gone  the  other  way, 
from  the  barbarian  to  the  more  cultivated, 
curious,  book-writing  nations  on  the  Mediter- 
ranean. But  for  the  most  part  we  may  be  sure 
that  myths  and  legends  did  not  move  about 
Europe  to  any  great  extent,  but  were  produced 
by  similar  strains  of  mankind  independently, 
to  meet  the  needs  of  a  similar  state  of  culture. 
And  since  all  nature,  the  beasts  and  birds 
about  them  were  pretty  much  the  same,  the 
gods  who  partook  of  similar  characteristics 
sprang  naturally  from  similar  observations  and 
were  credited  with  similar  lives. 

36 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Euro 


pe 


Take  the  woodpecker  as  an  instance. 
When  we  picture  to  ourselves  the  European 
savage,  noble  ancestor  of  our  pufFed-up  race, 
finding  it  a  matter  of  deep  thought  how  to 
keep  a  roof  over  his  head,  loving  murder,  a 
bloody  tyrant  to  the  weak,  cringing  before 
power,  subject  to  periodical  famines  because 
of  his  sloth  and  ignorance,  to  disease  because 
of  his  laziness  and  filthy  habits,  we  can  under- 
stand his  envy  and  admiration  of  a  bird  which, 
in  addition  to  various  marvellous,  superhuman 
traits,  has  the  practical  side  so  developed  that 
it  can  chisel  for  itself  in  a  few  hours  a  neat, 
dry  cave  in  the  bole  of  a  tree  —  a  bird  ever 
brave  and  gay  of  heart  that  seems  to  find 
nourishment  where  no  green  thing  grows, 
right  under  its  busy  beak. 

Mr.  Woodpecker  was  thought  to  know  the 
whereabouts  of  hidden  treasures ;  wherefore 
is  he  a  special  creation  of  the  high  god  Ukko 
of  the  Finns  and  has  a  mysterious  affinity  to 
fire,    also  a  rain    and  thunder  god.     Writing 

37 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Euro 


pe 


in  1644  Johann  GutslofF  gives  the  prayer  of 
an  old  Esthonian  farmer :  "  Beloved  Picker, 
we  will  sacrifice  to  thee  an  ox  with  two  horns 
and  four  hoofs,  and  want  to  beg  you  as  to  our 
ploughing  and  sowing  that  our  straw  shall  be 
red  as  copper  and  our  grain  as  yellow  as  gold. 
Send  elsewhither  all  black  thick  clouds  over 
great  swamps,  high  woods  and  wide  wastes  ! 
But  give  to  us  ploughmen  and  sowers  a  fertile 
season  and  sweet  rain." 

In  Finnish  and  Esthonian  pikker  is  no 
longer  used  to  designate  the  woodpecker,  per- 
haps because  when  a  word  is  once  used  for 
a  god  it  becomes  dangerous  and  is  gradually 
dropped  in  its  ordinary  meaning.  At  present 
tikka  holds  its  place.  Or  else  in  the  course  of 
time  the  initial  p  has  given  place  to  /,  as  we 
shall  find  that  the  Greeks  seem  to  have  re- 
ceived the  foreign  name  of  the  peacock  with 
that  bird  and  changed  the  initial  from  p  to  /. 

In  the  Kalevala  the  god  of  the  woods  Tapio 
is  the  old  bird  god   represented   by,  perhaps 

38 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

once  worshipped  under,  the  woodpecker ;  his 
name  contains  our  word  to  tap,  strike,  and  the 
German  word  tapfer,  brave.  In  that  epic  our 
friend  the  woodpecker  is  not  directly  named, 
perhaps  because  he  was  so  very  sacred  ;  but 
the  minor  wood  god  Nyyrikki,  upon  whom 
Lemminkainen  calls  in  his  distress  to  help 
him  track  the  magic  elk,  is,  like  his  father 
Tapio,  evidently  a  survival  of  Pikker.  We 
can  see  that  from  his  red  cap  and  blue  mantle 
and  the  prayer  addressed  to  him  that  he  shall 
blaze  a  path  through  the  woody  wilds. 

O  Nyyrikki,  mountain  hero. 

Son  of  Tapio  of  forests. 

Hero  with  the  scarlet  headgear. 

Notches  make  along  the  pathway. 

Landmarks  upward  on  the  mountain. 

That  the  hunter  may  not  wander. 

{Rujie  XIV,  Crawford's  translation.) 

In  German  legends  the  woodpecker  appears 
as  a  magic  bird  that  knows  where  the  spring- 
wurzel    grows,   a   flower   we   have    reason   to 

39 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

identify  with  some  species  of  the  peony,  the 
plant  of  Pan  and  the  sun,  that  plant  which 
will  open  concealed  doors  of  rock  and  permit 
the  lucky  possessor  to  enter  the  Venusberg 
and  lift  treasure.  The  way  to  beguile  this 
bird  is  to  stop  up  tightly  the  mouth  of  the 
hole  where  its  young  are ;  the  bird  returns, 
and,  after  seeing  what  is  wrong,  flies  off  to 
fetch  a  plant  which  will  dis- 
lodge the  obstruction.  If  the 
treasure-seeker  gives  a  shout 
at  the  right  moment,  the 
woodpecker  drops  the  spray 
and  flies  away.  Near  Rauen  in  the  Mark- 
grafenstein  is  a  princess  who  guards  a  treasure. 
She  can  only  be  released  and  the  treasure  lifted 
by  some  one  who  shall  come  at  midnight  of  a 
Friday,  carrying  a  white  woodpecker.  She  is 
the  descendant  of  Frau  Venus  in  the  Venus- 
berg, with  whom,  like  Ulysses  in  the  island 
of  Kalypso,  the  knight  Tannhauser  passed 
days  of  happiness  and  remorse. 

40 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

We  know  from  Pliny  what  great  store  the 
auspexes  of  Rome  set  by  the  woodpecker 
"  known  by  his  cognomen  of  Mars "  and 
from  mediaeval  German  writers  that  a  wood- 
pecker flying  to  the  right  was  an  omen  of 
good  luck,  Picus  the  god  was  figured  as  a 
youth  with  this  bird  on  his  head.  Though 
Pikker  or  Pikne  is  still  familiar  to  Finns  and 
Esthonians  in  fairy  stories,  where  he  is  known 
as  the  son  of  thunder,  he  seems  to  have  lost 
all  his  birdlike  qualities.  The  object  with 
which  he  strikes  his  enemies,  it  is  true,  is  con- 
ceived of  as  a  musical  instrument,  but  neither 
drum  nor  tambourine  ;  it  is  the  ancient  instru- 
ment of  the  Scotch  and  Irish  —  the  bagpipes. 
In  one  story  found  in  Esthland  the  son  of 
thunder  saves  himself  from  the  power  of  an 
evil  genius  by  stealing  the  thunderclap  in  the 
shape  of  bagpipes  from  his  father  Kou  and 
giving  them  up  as  a  ransom.  When  Old 
Horny  has  them  locked  up  in  hell  no  rain 
falls  and  the  earth  dries  up.     In  another  folk- 

41 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

tale  it  is  Pikne  who  is  thunder  god  and  owner 
of  the  pipes,  and  it  is  the  devil  himself,  plainly 
at  an  earlier  date  some  goblin  not  so  malignant 
as  Satan,  who  steals  and  makes  off  with  them. 

Pikker  is  a  word  found  again  in  German 
Specht,  woodpecker.  Finnic  tribes  find  it 
inconvenient  to  pronounce  s  and  p  together. 
The  word  Spickgans,  smoked  goose,  appears 
in  Esthonian  as  pikk-hani. 

The  Kelts  seem  to  have  applied  a  word  like 
picus  and  Pikker  to  the  raven,  with  a  change 
of  initial  p  to  f;  since  Irish  has  fiach  (feek) 
for  that  wily  bird  of  magic  and  prophecy.  It 
is  a  bird  with  human  traits,  for  although  the 
woodpecker  laughs,  the  raven  can  be  taught 
to  speak.  Beside  Picus  the  ancient  Italians 
had  pica,  the  magpie  —  another  wise,  uncanny 
bird.  The  Greeks  called  the  woodpecker  with 
circumlocutions  the  tree-chiseller,  or  else 
pelekas,  the  hewer  with  an  axe,  as  if  his 
ordinary  name  had  become  too  sacred  to  pro- 
nounce.    Aristophanes  called  him  oak-striker; 

42 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

when  he  spoke  of  the  poikilis  or  "  speckled  " 
bird  that  eats  the  eggs  of  the  lark  he  probably 
referred  to  the  magpie. 

The  importance  of  the  woodpecker  in  the 
eyes  of  Roman  soothsayers  can  hardly  be  over- 
estimated. I  have  a  seal,  scarab-like  in  form, 
wrought  in  the  old  Italiot  way  of  rounds  con- 
nected by  grooves,  which  I  obtained  at  Flor- 
ence. It  belongs  to  the  sort  called  Etruscan. 
The  seal  shows  a  man  seated  with  a  bird  be- 
fore him,  which  he  appears  to  be  teaching  a 
trick.  As  usual  in  these  rude  seals,  it  is  not 
easy  to  fix  the  species  of  the  bird ;  but  it  seems 
a  woodpecker  to  which  the  provincial  seal- 
cutter  has  given  a  somewhat  longer  tail  than 
nature  allows  Mr.  Picus.  That  the  man  is  an 
auspex  or  soothsayer  is  reasonably  certain  from 
the  fact  that  he  wears  the  conical  cap  seen  on 
the  little  statuette  with  Etruscan  inscription 
in  the  Vatican  Museum,  a  statuette  generally 
allowed  to  be  that  of  an  Etruscan  augur  or 
diviner. 

43 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

One  may  recall  here  the  classic  story  of 
-^lius  the  praetor,  chief  of  a  famous  family  of 
Rome  at  the  time  of  Hannibal's  entrance  into 
Italy.  As  he  sat  on  his  chair  a  woodpecker 
flew  down  and  settled  on  his  head.  All  was 
excitement  and  alarm  at  the  prodigy  !  The 
bird  was  caught  and  the  augurs  called  in. 
These  declared  that  its  coming  meant  disaster, 
but  whether  to  ^lius  and  his  clan  or  to  the 
republic  depended  on  circumstances.  Should 
the  woodpecker  be  freed  unharmed,  great  pros- 
perity would  result  to  iElius  and  his  family, 
but  disaster  would  come  to  the  republic. 
Should  the  bird  be  killed,  then  the  republic 
would  prosper,  but  the  iElian  family  would 
meet  with  ruin. 

In  a  dilemma  of  this  sort  the  hero  always 
prefers  his  fatherland  to  his  family,  otherwise 
the  story  would  not  be  told.  iSilius  killed  the 
living  symbol  of  the  god  Picus  and  at  the  bat- 
tie  of  Cannae,  which  occurred  soon  after,  he  lost 
seventeen  members  of  his  clan. 

44 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

Doubtless  this  is  the  bird  of  popular  super- 
stition in  White  Russia  which  is  described  with 
eyes  of  fire  and  a  fiery  beard,  a  guardian  of 
treasures,  and  probably  not  the  demon  repre- 
senting the  underground  gods  of  wealth,  Pluto 
or  Kuveras,  which  Gubernatis  suggests.  In 
one  of  the  stories  of  the  Pentameron  a  fairy 
in  bird-form  stops  the  king  who  is  about  to 
kill  Pontiella.  In  order  that  Pontiella  and 
her  child  shall  not  die  of  starvation,  the  bird 
picks  a  hole  in  the  tower  where  she  is  confined 
and  gives  them  food.  Here  we  have  the 
magic  woodpecker  again. 

Ravens  and  crows  were  greater  favorites  with 
the  augurs,  since  their  wide  flight  and  distinct 
voices  made  them  convenient  for  divination. 
That  was  a  strange  tale  of  Valerius  Corvus, 
who  accepted  the  challenge  of  a  huge  Gaul  to 
single  combat  during  the  invasion  of  Lower 
Italy  by  the  Kelts  under  Bran  the  "  raven  "  or 
Brennus.  During  the  duel  he  was  aided  by  a 
crow  that  attacked  the  Gaul's  face  with  beak 

45 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

and  wing  and  so  confused  him  that  Valerius 
made  his  foe  an  easy  prey,  whence  Valerius 
was  also  Corvus  thereafter.  Here  was  a  crow- 
counsellor,  like  the  ravens  Hugin  and  Mugin 
that  whispered  advice  in  the  ears  of  the  Norse 
god  Odin.  Note  that  the  famous  Gaulish  con- 
queror of  Rome  had  a  name  meaning  a  bird. 

A  closer  analogy  is  found  in  Wales  to  the 
legend  of  Valerius  Corvus  :  in  a  Mabinogi  the 
hero  Owein  son  of  Urien  is  accompanied  by 
an  army  of  ravens,  which  attack  his  enemies 
like  so  many  Stymphalian  birds.  Woden's 
ravens  have  their  parallel  in  Ireland.  The 
hero  Cuchullaind  had  two  magic  ravens  that 
announced  to  him  the  coming  of  his  foes  and 
were  attacked  by  them  for  that  reason.  In 
Japan  there  is  a  special  kind  of  demon  or 
goblin  called  Karaku-Tengu  "  crow-demon," 
having  wings  and  the  beak  of  a  crow  in  place 
of  nose.  I  have  an  egg-shaped  talisman,  used 
as  a  button,  carved  of  hard  wood,  which  shows 
delightfully  the  birth  of  a  Karaku-Tengu.    The 

46 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

little  fellow  has  just  chipped  the  shell ;  his 
beak,  wing  and  three-fingered  hands  are  visible 
where  the  egg-shell  has  been  broken  by  his 
efforts. 

It   is  not  strange  that   birds  fascinated   the 
ancient  peoples ;    they  fascinate  modern    men 
who    think    they    know         ^^i^        '***'*s^ 
everything    and  for  the     f^^^^^^T^^^jV^K 
most  part   are   too    ab-    I  ^smor^^w^^ 
sorbed  by  the    struggle     ^(^»tw*gi^F'fg*^^ 
for  life  in  cities  to  look         ^•■Vi'irrt'T"^^^ 
long  and  closely  at  nature.     In  Rhode  Island 
I   have  watched  on  Conanicut  cliffs  a  row  of 
sea-birds  perching  in  a  recess  of  the  rock  near 
Horse's  Head.     About  sundown,  one  after  the 
other,  these  birds  would  fly  far  out  over  the 
swirling   sea    to    the    big   black    Kettle    Rock 
opposite    Castle  Hill,  turn  and   return   to  its 
perch.     When    the    last    had    performed    this 
solemn  rite,  all  went  to  sleep ;  it  was  a  fare- 
well   to    the    sun.      And    indeed,    when    one 
thinks  of  the  tailor-birds  that  weave,  and  the 

47 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

rails  that  hold  dancing-parties,  and  those  birds 
that  build  bowers  to  sport  in  and  deck  them 
with  shining  objects ;  when  one  thinks  of  the 
preternatural  cunning  of  the  magpie,  and  recol- 
lects how  prone  birds  are,  even  dull  domestic 
fowl,  to  make  sudden,  inexplicable  calls  and 
rushes  ;  when  one  notes  the  clock-like  regu- 
larity of  the  return  of  migratory  birds  to  their 
old  haunts  and  their  supernatural  gift  of  find- 
ing a  way  by  night  and  fog  —  it  is  no  wonder 
that  not  only  poets,  but  tiresome,  humdrum 
persons  believed  in  their  magical  power  at 
the  earliest  epochs. 

What  schoolboy  has  not  marvelled  at  that 
strange  story  of  Philomela  and  Procne,  daugh- 
ters of  Pandion  king  of  Athens  ?  According 
to  the  legend  Pandion's  son-in-law  Tereus  was 
changed  to  a  hoopoe  or  a  hawk,  Philomela  to  a 
nightingale,  Procne  to  a  swallow.  The  wicked 
king  of  Thessaly  who  wooed  and  won  Philo- 
mela bears  in  his  name  (Tereus  the  piercer, 
borer)  the  most  notable  trait  of  our  little  friend 

48 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

woodpecker.  Pandion  "  Pan  the  god  "  was,  as 
presently  we  shall  see,  alternately  the  eagle, 
peacock  or  cuckoo. 

Tereus  Woodpecker  first  marries  Philomela 
Nightingale,  and  then,  tiring  of  her,  persuades 
Pandion  (his  father-in-law)  and  Procne  Swal- 
low (his  sister-in-law)  that  Philomela  is  dead; 
whereupon  he  gets  also  Swallow  to  wife.  On 
the  journey  home  Woodpecker  cuts  out  Swal- 
low's tongue  so  that  she  may  never  tell  of  his 
crime  when  she  discovers  that  her  sister  is  still 
alive.  Whence  it  followed  that  the  swallow 
from  that  time  forth  could  only  make  twitter- 
ing noises  like  barbarians  —  the  Greeks  said 
that  barbarians  did  not  speak,  they  twittered. 

When  we  consider  Lemminkainen  and  II- 
marinen  in  the  poetry  of  Finland  we  find  this 
story  again,  with  the  cuckoo,  not  the  wood- 
pecker, as  the  villain  of  the  play. 

The  wondersmith  Ilmarinen,  whose  first  wife 
was  slain  through  the  malice  of  Kullervo,  goes 
again  to  Pohjola  to  woo  her  sister.  But  the 
4  49 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

sister  fears  the  same  fate  and  refuses  him ; 
whereupon  he  seizes  her  and,  placing  her  in  his 
magic  sleigh,  carries  her  off.  As  she  gives 
him  none  but  bitter  words  and  constantly  wails 
and  complains,  he  loses  patience  and  turns  her 
into  a  gull ;  whence  it  is  that  the  gull  fre- 
quents lonely  seas  and  shores  and  never  ceases 
to  complain.  Finally  we  must  not  forget  a 
parallel  of  Picus  of  Italy  and  Pikker  of  Estho- 
nia  among  the  Old  Prussians,  a  Slavic  race  pro- 
bably mixed  with  Finnic  tribes.  They  had  an 
idol  to  which  human  beings  were  sacrificed. 
When  pleased,  this  idol  was  heard  to  laugh  ! 
Its  name  was  Picollus !  "  der  olle  Pikker "  ? 

But  before  turning  to  other  bird  gods  I  may 
say  that  the  expression  the  Greeks  used  for  a 
foreign  tongue  "  twitter "  has  always  seemed 
to  me  to  point  to  a  Slavonic  language  as  the 
first  which  suggested  the  idea.  If  one  listens 
to  Polish  or  Vendish,  without  understanding  it, 
there  is  a  peculiarly  soft  twittering  quality  to 
be  remarked  in  the  utterance,  probably  due  to 

SO 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

the  comparative  infrequency  of  broad  vowels, 
the  softening  of  consonants  and  vowels  with  /, 
and  the  constant  use  of  the  soft  sh.  Geo- 
graphically, too,  the  idea  that  to  Greeks  a  Slav 
tongue  was  the  nearest  and  commonest  of  bar- 
barian languages  has  everything  to  recommend 
it. 

Notwithstanding  the  horror  with  which  the 
crime  of  Tereus  was  regarded  by  antiquity  he 
was  worshipped  after  death,  another  proof  that 
we  have  in  him  a  god  whose  story  is  myth 
become  history.  Pausanias  mentions  his  tomb 
in  his  description  of  Attika.  According  to 
the  Megarians  he  was  a  king  of  the  district  of 
Pagai  in  their  land.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  to  punish  him  his  wife  slew  their  son 
Itys  and  served  him  at  a  banquet ;  but  Tereus 
was  not  able  to  avenge  the  crime  on  the 
vengeful  woman  he  had  wronged.  He  died 
in  Megara  by  his  own  hand,  reports  Pausa- 
nias, and  as  soon  as  he  was  dead  they  built 
a  cairn  over  his  grave   and  worshipped   him 

SI 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

every  year.  But  instead  of  scattering  grains 
of  barley,  they  scattered  little  pebbles  on  his 
tomb. 

Such  wonderful  tales  were  invented  by  the 
Greeks  to  explain  the  remnants  of  a  worship 
of  the  woodpecker  found  among  the  earlier 
denizens  of  Greece. 


52 


The  Cuckoo  Gods 

CHAPTER   III 

THOUGH  I  had  often  heard  the  cry  of 
the  cuckoo  on  a  visit  to  Europe  as  a 
child,  the  first  cuckoo  I  ever  saw  was  in  the 
west  of  Ireland  long  after.  A  brownish  bird 
the  size  of  a  pigeon,  looking  somewhat  like 
a  hawk,  flew  across  the  road,  and,  settling  in  a 
field,  hopped  or  rather  scrambled  about  in  a 
rather  hawk-like  way.  I  did  not  recognize 
him  ;  but  when  my  driver  told  me  who  he 
was  I  descended  with  alacrity  and  was  amused 
at  the  clumsiness  on  foot  of  a  bird  that  seemed 
ready  enough  on  the  wing. 

53 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

"  The  awkward  gawk ! "  I  murmured,  re- 
membering the  common  term  for  him ;  and  as 
I  beheld  his  labored  gait  and  bethought  me  of 
certain  old  heroes  of  Ireland,  whose  curious 
traits  and  adventures  have  never  been  explained, 
I  fell  to  thinking  — 

Of  elders  of  olde  time  and  their  awke  dedys. 

At  last  I  had  clappe4  eyes  on  a  bird  whose 
peculiar  ways  and  life  had  given  me  a  clew 
to  legends  woven  about  various  mighty  men 
of  yore,  though  his  familiar  name  of  gawk 
among  the  English,  Gauch  among  the  Ger- 
mans, is  considered  more  suggestive  of  clown- 
ishness  and  stupidity  than  of  heroism.  For 
he  is  the  unlucky,  left-handed,  gauche  bird, 
whose  name  has  enriched  the  French  language 
with  terms  for  the  left  hand  and  lack  of  dex- 
terity. The  good  and  bad  in  him  seems  to 
have  impressed  men  and  been  carried  by  the 
old  peoples  to  extremes. 

Since  then  I  have  often  heard  and  sometimes 
54 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

seen  the  cuckoo  in  his  favorite  haunts  —  some 
country  neighborhood  where  trees  and  shrubs 
are  abundant  enough  to  give  him  rests  in  his 
short  flights  and  supply  the  smaller  song- 
sters with  convenient  nesting-places,  which 
the  cuckoo-mother  can  use  in  her  way.  One 
hears  them  to  the  right  and  left  as  one  punts 
about  the  canals  of  the  upper  Spree  in  that  odd 
little  country  of  the  Vends,  where  the  old  Vend- 
ish  tongue  still  lingers  among  the  rustics.  What 
a  softness,  what  a  dreaminess,  yet  what  alert- 
ness, in  their  call  1  Very  difl^erent  is  the  sound 
of  the  American  cuckoo  —  a  smaller  bird  with 
a  louder,  hastier,  longer  note,  and  a  family  life 
that  does  not  lend  itself  to  the  grievous  charges 
made  against  its  European  cousin. 

Difficult  to  distinguish  whence  it  comes,  the 
call  of  the  old-world  cuckoo  baffles  the  listener 
like  the  voice  of  a  ventriloquist,  as  indeed  it  is. 
There 's  your  uncanny  bird,  if  ever  there  was 
one !  And  the  country  people,  not  content 
with  charging  against  it  the  actual  tricks  and 

55 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

misdeeds  it  plays  on  other  birds  in  its  deter- 
mination to  escape  the  hardest  part  of  the  rear- 
ing of  its  young,  have  saddled  the  cuckoo  with 
all  sorts  of  gratuitous  crimes.  It  is  said  to  live 
in  lawless  love,  like  the  cowbird  of  America. 
It  is  accused  of  killing  the  young  in  the  nest 
of  the  little  bird  where  it  has  placed  its  own 
egg  to  be  hatched.  It  is  charged  with  desert- 
ing its  own  offspring  forever,  out  of  pure 
laziness  and  hardness  of  heart,  nay,  even  of 
devouring  its  foster-parents  ! 

But  some  careful  observers  have  maintained 
that  cuckoos  pair  for  life  and  are  steadfast 
mates,  do  not  directly  kill  the  young  of  the 
foster-birds  nor  break  their  eggs ;  yet  they 
acknowledge  that  the  female  cuckoo  removes 
the  eggs  of  the  foster-mother  after  its  own 
child  is  hatched.  The  mother  keeps  her  eye 
on  each  nest  where  one  of  her  eggs  has  been 
placed,  watches  over  the  growth  of  her  off- 
spring, and,  when  the  latter  is  ready  to  fly, 
takes  possession  of  it,  and  presumably  begins 

S6 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

at  once  to  point  out  to  it  the  advantage  of 
being  a  parasite,  teaching  it  how  to  profit  by 
the  kindliness  of  similar  hosts  thereafter. 

Such  refinements  of  observation  can  scarcely 
be  expected  from  the  ancients,  nor  in  the  pres- 
ent from  rustics.  To  the  ancients  the  cuckoo 
was  a  darling  of  crime  whose  knavery  endeared 
him  to  them,  whose  supposed  wickedness  struck 
them  with  the  horrified  admiration  that  peasants 
often  show  for  brazen  criminals.  Was  not  the 
ancient  chief  or  Druid  or  rainmaker  or  medi- 
cine-man a  person  who  lived  on  his  wits 
through  the  credulity  of  his  less  clever  fellows  ? 
How  could  he  fail  to  admire  a  bird  that  showed 
its  "  smartness  "  by  shoving  on  the  shoulders 
of  others  the  trouble  of  child-rearing  ?  Foster- 
age of  children,  a  custom  found  particularly 
rife  in  Ireland,  may  well  have  had  its  vogue 
through  imitation  of  this  bird. 

The  ancients  believed  that  cuckoos  took  no 
further  care  of  their  young  put  out  to  nurse. 
Thanks  to  ceaseless  vigils  on  the  part  of  men 

57 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

like  Baldamus,  we  know  that  this  is  not  the 
case.  Believing  as  they  did,  they  proceeded  to 
argue  thus  :  the  young  cuckoo  must  grow  up 
ignorant  of  father,  mother,  brother  and  sister ; 
when  it  comes  to  mate,  what  is  to  prevent  it 
from  pairing  with  a  near  relative  ?  A  tragedy 
is  always  possible.     Here  is  the  clew  to  many 

a  fairy  story  which  has 
come  down  from  some 
legend  of  a  heathen  god, 
whose  living  symbol  was 
the  cuckoo,  to  more  than 
one  great  drama,  and  to 
numberless  strange  tales, 
revolting  to  modern  decency,  otherwise  inexpli- 
cable in  their  seemingly  gratuitous  immorality 
—  tales  that  were  repeated  in  the  inglenook  as 
of  historical  personages,  tales  — 

Of  elders  of  olde  time  and  their  awke  dedys. 

I  am  not  aware  that  this  provenance  of 
many  folk-tales,  epical  songs,  ballads,  legends 

58 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

and  myths  has  ever  been  pointed  out  before ; 
bird  gods  seem  to  have  attracted  litde  atten- 
tion ;  but  the  truth  of  that  provenance  can,  I 
beHeve,  be  substantiated  from  the  mythology 
and  legends  of  Greece  and  Rome  in  the  light 
of  those  of  Ireland  and  Scodand,  Wales,  Nor- 
way, Finland,  Prussia,  Esthonia  and  Russia, 
—  countries  where  the  old  traits  have  received 
less  rubbing,  the  old  tints  a  thinner  varnish  of 
late  colors,  than  is  the  case  with  countries  like 
France  and  Germany,  Holland  and  Belgium. 

The  Kalevala  of  the  Finns,  fitted  together 
into  an  epic  by  Elias  Lonnrot,  the  epic  that 
gave  Longfellow  his  impulse  for  "  Hiawatha," 
is  crammed  with  remnants  of  old  bird-lore  — 
divine  oird-lore,  once  common  to  Europe  and 
Asia.  With  their  connections  by  language  to 
Esths,  Lapps,  Samoyeds,  Turks,  Hungarians, 
Etruscans  and  the  ancient  peoples  of  the 
Euphrates,  the  Finns  seem  the  most  poetical 
survivors  of  a  race  that  once  covered  the  face 
of  Europe,  before  the  Kelts  grew  numerous 

59 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

enough  to  root  them  out  in  this  quarter  and 
absorb  them  in  that.  Their  Kalevala  and  the 
ballads  and  fairy  stories  which  failed  to  be 
woven  into  that  epic,  are  not  only  admirable  as 
poetry,  but  are  mines  from  which  we  can  draw 
in  order  to  repair  the  gaps  in  the  myths  and 
folk-lore  of  more  than  one  famous  race  — 
Greek,   Latin,  Keltic,  Scandinavian. 

The  Rigveda  of  the  old  Indians  speaks  of 
the  cuckoo  in  such  a  way  that  we  see  at  once 
it  must  have  been  a  god  to  earlier  inhabitants. 
The  kokila,  as  he  is  called  in  Sanskrit,  is 
there  said  to  be  a  bird  who  knows  all  things, 
not  only  what  has  happened,  but  what  shall 
happen.  To  the  inhabitants  of  India,  as  well 
as  to  Europeans,  is  he  a  prophetic  bird.  The 
same  is  true  of  two  species  of  cuckoos  in  New 
Guinea.  In  Germany  he  foretold  riches  or 
poverty  for  the  rest  of  the  year,  also  the 
number  of  years  the  listener  had  to  live,  also 
the  time  that  must  elapse  before  marriage. 
Goethe   has    used   these   ideas    in   his   verses 

60 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

"  Fruhlings-Orakel."  Hesiod  taught  the  Greek 
farmer  to  look  out  for  three  days  of  rain 
when  he  first  heard  the  cuckoo's  note.  On 
the  other  hand  it  has  been  observed  that 
the  Indians  of  CaHfornia  and  Mexico  show 
great  terror  when  they  hear  the  voice  of  the 
cuckoo.  This  is  all  the  more  surprising 
because  the  American  cuckoo  rarely  if  ever 
interferes  with  the  nests  of  other  birds ;  there- 
fore their  fear  must  have  some  other  cause. 

In  England  of  the  thirteenth  century  the 
cuckoo's  treachery  to  his  foster-parents  must 
have  been  an  article  of  faith,  or  Chaucer  in  his 
Parlement  of  Foules  would  not  have  caused 
the  merlin  to  exclaim  in  answer  to  the  cuckoo : 

Thou  murtherer  of  the  hedge-sparr'w  on  the  branch 
That  brought  thee  forth!  thou  ruthful-Iess  glutton. 
Live  thou  alone,  worme  (of)  corruption! 

The  Kalevipoeg,  too,  the  epic  of  the  Estho- 
nians,  is  full  of  bird-mention.  But  let  us  keep 
for  the  present  to  the  cuckoo  gods. 

Lemminkainen  (from  lemmin,  love)  is  a 
6i 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

male  god  of  love,  like  the  male  Venus  of  Italy, 
and  has  his  female  counterpart  in  Lemmetar. 
It  is  from  this  word  that  old  English  got 
*'  leman  "  female  lover.  A  closer  parallel  still 
to  the  male  and  female  Venuses  of  Italy  are 
Vaino  and  Aino  in  the  Kalevala,  brother  and 
sister  demigods,  and  the  old  Italiot  deities  of 
agriculture  called  Pales,  also  brother  and 
sister.  Venus  and  Vaino  are  indeed  the  same 
word.  In  his  form  of  Ilmarinen,  air  god, 
Vaino  has  the  attributes  of  Vulcan,  and  just 
as  Vulcan  is  unable  to  please  Venus,  so  Vaino 
is  not  fortunate  with  Aino. 

No  stated  bird  is  given  to  Lemminkainen 
in  the  Kalevala ;  but  his  nickname  Kauko 
and  the  general  looseness  of  his  morals  point 
to  the  cuckoo.  Nor  is  it  expressly  said  that 
Vaino  the  old  singer,  half  bard,  half  demiurge, 
who  is  the  chief  actor  of  divine  and  human 
parts  in  that  epic,  has  a  particular  bird  as- 
signed him.  Rather  are  all  birds  obedient  to 
him    and    he  understands   through    his  magic 

62 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

the  language  of  all,  like  unto  Solomon.  When 
he  plays  the  harp  all  birds  gather  and  the 
beasts,  too,  and  even  the  fishes  swim  to  the 
shore  to  listen  to  his  minstrelsy,  even  as  they 
came  to  hear  Saint  Francis  preach.  He  and 
Orpheus  are  the  same,  bird  gods  both,  as  we 
shall  see.  If  any,  it  is  the  eagle  that  favors 
old  Vaino,  that  lover  ever  luckless  —  who  is 
in  that  respect  in  sharp  contrast  to  Lemmin- 
kainen,  whom  too  many  women  adore  —  and 
next  to  the  eagle,  the  cuckoo. 

And  good  reason  is  assigned  for  the  love 
that  eagles  and  cuckoos  give  to  Vaino,  for 
when  he  cleared  the  primeval  forests  of  Vain- 
ola  he  left  a  tree  for  the  birds  to  perch  on 
(mark  this,  ye  all-too-zealous  foresters !) : 

Down  from  heaven  came  the  eagle. 
Through  the  air  he  came  aflying. 
That  he  might  this  thing  consider. 
And  he  spoke  the  words  that  follow: 
**  Wherefore,  ancient  Wainamoinen, 
Hast  thou  left  the  slender  birch-tree. 
Left  the  birch-tree  only  standing  ? ' ' 
63 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

Wainamoinen  thus  made  answer  : 
**  Therefore  is  the  birch  left  standing 
That  the  birds  may  rest  within  it. 
That  the  eagle  there  may  rest  him. 
There  may  sing  the  sacred  cuckoo.'* 
Spoke  the  eagle,  thus  replying : 
**  Good  indeed  thy  hero  judgment 
That  the  birch-tree  thou  hast  left  us. 
Left  the  sacred  birch-tree  standing 
As  a  resting  place  for  eagles 
And  for  birds  of  every  feather." 

(Rune  II,  Crawford's  translation.) 

The  cuckoo  also  asks  Vaino  why  he  has 
left  the  birch-tree  and  gets  the  same  answer. 
Wherefore,  out  of  gratitude,  the  eagle  brings 
fire  from  heaven,  wherewith  the  forests  can  be 
overcome. 

Lemminkainen's  bird  especial,  the  harbinger 
of  spring  —  sui-linda  or  summer  bird,  as  the 
Esthonians  call  it  —  the  cuckoo  is  even  more 
pronouncedly  a  sacred,  auspicious  creature 
than  the  woodpecker.  In  some  parts  of 
Germany  the  people  still  believe  that  when 
you  hear  his  call  for  the  first  time  in  spring 

64 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

you  can  learn  the  number  of  years  you  have 
to  live.  All  you  do  is  to  count  the  calls. 
Good  luck  or  the  reverse  is  prophesied  by  the 
direction  from  which  the  sounds  come  —  if 
from  the  right,  good;  if  from  the  left,  bad 
luck. 

In  Sweden  and  Denmark  they  have  formu- 
las for  listening  to  the  cuckoo,  which  fix  good 
or  bad  luck  to  the  points  of  the  compass. 
The  words  that  rhyme  with  north,  south, 
east,  west,  being  easily  kept  in  memory,  the 
Swedish  peasant  has  his  rule  always  ready; 
thus  (gok  being  our  ominous  bird  the  gawk) : 

North :  norr-gok,  sorg-gdk  !  (sorrow-bird) 

South  :   sor-gdk,  smor-gok  !  (butter-bird) 

East :  6ster-g6k,  troste-gok !  (consolation-bird) 

West:  vester-gok,  basta-gok  !  (best  of  birds) 

Flat  sweet  cakes  were  baked  in  spring, 
shaped  rudely  like  the  cuckoo  and  eaten  in 
dim  remembrance  of  some  heathen  ceremonial. 
In  Old  England  a  special  ale  was  brewed, 
called  cuckoo-ale,  and  drunk  out  of  doors. 
5  65 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

Apparently  Finns  and  Esths  were  in  the 
habit  of  decking  out  the  tall  yokes  about 
their  horses*  necks,  as  well  as  their  sledges, 
with  copper  or  brass  cuckoos  when  they 
wished  to  be  particularly  fine,  as  when  they 
went  a-wooing  or  drove  to  a  wedding.  When 
Ilmarinen,  son  of  the  air  and  wondersmith, 
starts  for  Pohjola  to  secure  the  fair  maid  of 
the  North  for  his  bride,  knowing  that  sly  old 
Vaino  is  bound  on  the  same  errand,  he  does 
everything  to  make  himself  acceptable  to  the 
girl  and  her  covetous  mother  by  indicating 
his  own  wealth.  Thus  he  orders  his  best 
sleigh  with  all  its  decorations  — 

Take  the  fleetest  of  my  racers. 
Put  the  gray  steed  in  the  harness. 
Hitch  him  to  my  sledge  of  magic ; 
Place  six  cuckoos  on  the  break-board. 
Seven  bluebirds  on  the  crossbow. 
Thus  to  charm  the  northland  maidens, 
Thus  to  make  them  look  and  listen 
As  the  cuckoos  call  and  echo. 

[Rune  XVIII,  Crawford's  translation.) 

66 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

Here  the  crossbow  means  the  bow  above 
the  yoke  and  "  bluebirds  "  are  not  the  sweet 
spring  warblers  known  by  that  name  in 
America,  but  another  designation  for  the 
cuckoo.  The  repetition  six  and  seven  does 
not  indicate  different  objects,  as  one  might 
readily  suppose ;  it  is  a  peculiarity  of  Finnish 
poetry  to  repeat  the  same  thing  in  successive 
verses  with  a  larger  numeral  in  each  verse. 
"  Golden "  is  the  usual  adjective  for  the 
cuckoo,  but  "  blue "  is  often  added,  the  one 
adjective  being  poetic  exaggeration  for  the 
bluish-brown  back,  the  other  for  the  gray 
sides  of  the  cuckoo.  As  the  sleigh  he  orders 
out  is  his  "  sledge  of  magic  "  and  as  he  was 
the  Vulcan  of  the  Finnic  tribes,  we  must 
suppose  that  these  six  or  seven  birds  were 
automata  of  metal  that  imitated  the  cuckoo's 
voice  like  our  clocks  and  sang  when  the 
sleigh   moved  —  a  superior  sort  of  sleighbells. 

The  cuckoo  was  a  marriage  bird  and  yet 
a  sinister  bird   of  crime ;  he  was  addressed  as 

67 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

"  golden "  and  "  beauty "  also  with  other 
terms  of  admiration ;  but  he  seems  to  have 
been  also  feared.  Perhaps  because  he  is  so 
"  awke "  on  the  ground,  his  name  is  often 
the  synonym  for  lubberliness  and  stupidity. 
Zeus  took  the  form  of  a  cuckoo  to  approach 
Hera,  at  once  his  sister  and  his  wife,  and  a 
bass-relief  shows  the  cuckoo  on  the  sceptres 
he  and  she  carry  in  a  marriage  procession. 
Why  the  cuckoo  myth  can  be  detected  even 
among  the  haughtiest  gods  of  Olympus  will 
be  seen  when  we  come  to  speak  of  Pan. 

The  birds  carved  in  soapstone  found  by 
Bent  in  the  ruins  of  Zmbabwe,  Mashonaland, 
which  were  left  there  by  some  as  yet  unde- 
termined race  of  intruders  and  gold  miners, 
may  prove  to  be  rude  attempts  to  portray 
the  cuckoo,  rather  than  the  woodpecker. 

When  we  recall  the  superstitions  as  to  birds 
that  still  live  in  Europe  —  as,  for  example, 
that  a  bird  flying  into  a  house  is  unlucky,  a 
stork  deserting  a  homestead  portends  death,  a 

68 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

hen  crowing  at  a  wedding  augurs  that  the  wife 
will  wear  the  breeches,  swallows  building  on 
a  house  bring  good  luck,  gulls  inland  bode 
a  storm  —  we  begin  to  reaHze  what  a  body 
of  religious  belief  must  have  once  existed  in 
Europe  with  respect  to  birds  alone,  since  these 
are  merely  fragments,  survivals  down  to  his- 
torical times,  remnants  of  a  vast  bird  lore, 
bird  religion.  Consider  that  in  order  to  have 
birds  to  augur  from,  as  they  picked  up  the 
sacred  food,  or  as  they  were  slaughtered  and 
inspected,  the  Romans  took  the  trouble  to 
carry  pullets  about  with  them  in  war  (auguria 
pullaria)  and  assigned  them  a  special  place  in 
their  entrenched  camps.  The  auspex  (avi- 
spex,  bird  seer)  presided  at  the  founding  of 
Rome,  Latins  and  Sabines  having  found  that 
birds  were  interpreters  of  the  future  long  before 
Rome  was.  The  Etruscans,  whose  mastery 
in  religion  the  Romans  acknowledged,  were 
adepts  in  reading  the  signs  of  the  bird  and 
annually  furnished  Rome  with  bird-readers. 

69 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

The  amount  of  this  bird  worship  was  so 
great  and  its  existence  so  universal  that  it 
seems  illogical  to  suppose  the  transfer  of  a 
bird  myth  from  Greece  to  Italy,  or  from  Italy 
to  Finland  or  Ireland,  because  we  find  the 
same  framework  of  the  myth  in  those  several 
lands.  Why  could  not  the  same  story  have 
grown  in  each  ?  It  is  more  logical  to  deduce 
from  such  resemblances  a  similarity  of  race  and 
cultivation  in  prehistoric  times,  especially  if 
other  proofs  exist  that  in  remote  epochs  there 
was  far  less  diversity  among  the  populations 
of  Europe  than  in  later  days. 

The  Finns,  now  for  the  most  part  Russian 
subjects,  live  on  the  Baltic  north  and  east  of 
the  gulf  of  Finland;  while  their  cousins  the 
Esthonians,  also  Russian,  dwell  to  the  south  of 
the  gulf.  The  Lapps  to  the  northward  have 
always  seemed  to  supply  the  Finns  with  an 
ideal  of  what  magicians,  wind-wise  sooth- 
sayers and  conjurers  should  be ;  but,  for  the 
Esths,   the  Finns  were  quite  good  enough  in 

70 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Euro 


pe 


that  line.  In  the  Kalevala  of  the  Finns  the 
demi-gods  Vaino,  Ilmarinen  and  Lemmin- 
kainen  go  northward,  as  if  to  Lapland,  to  beat 
the  toothless  hag  of  Pohjola  at  magic,  win  her 
daughters  for  wives,  or  rob  them,  if  necessary, 
and  especially  to  carry  off  the  sampo —  that  fruit, 
flock  and  riches-giving  talisman,  now  conceived 
of  realistically  as  a  mill,  again  thought  of  as  a 
constellation,  or  the  rainbow,  or  the  sun's  face 
itself  In  the  Kalevipoeg,  an  epic  of  Esthland 
drawn  together  like  the  Kalevala  from  ballads 
scattered  and  conflicting  at  times,  the  sorcerer 
of  most  note  is  a  Finn,  and  the  demi-god  of 
the  Esths  swims  northward  from  Esthonia  to 
avenge  on  him  the  loss  of  a  mother.  As  Vaino 
and  Lemminkainen  defeat  by  magic  the  Hag 
of  the  North,  so  Kalevipoeg  the  giant  rudely 
pulverizes  the  magician  of  Finland,  who,  as  we 
shall  see,  stands  to  him  in  a  relation  peculiar  to 
cuckoo  gods. 

Bird  lore  is  even  more  frequently  mentioned 
in  the  Esthonian  than  the  Finnish  epic.     The 

71 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Euro 


pe 


first  canto  of  Kalevipoeg   opens   with  the  in- 
vocation — 

Steer,  O  bard  of  honied  accents. 
Steer  the  shallop  of  your  ballads. 
Of  your  song  the  slender  shallop. 
Turn  it  deftly  to  the  seacoast. 
Where  the  eagle,  golden  proverbs  — 
Where  the  raven,  silver  stories  — 
Svsrans,  their  hero-lays  of  copper 
Have  from  ancient  days  kept  hidden. 
That  were  formerly  outspoken. 
Cry  it  forth,  ye  birds  of  wisdom. 
Utter  it,  ye  ocean  billows. 
And,  ye  winds,  the  secret  publish  — 
Where  may  lie  the  Kalev's  cradle. 
Where  the  homestead  of  the  heroes  ! 

The  birds  here  mentioned  are  valued  in  de- 
scending scale  by  the  adjectives  golden,  silver, 
copper;  which  reminds  one  of  the  South 
American  legend  of  the  origin  of  chiefs,  nobles 
and  people  from  three  celestial  eggs,  of  gold, 
silver  and  copper  respectively.  The  eagle  and 
raven  are  favorites  of  mythology ;  the  swan 
is  of  that  Siberian  variety  which   makes  rich 

72 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

melody  and  does  literally  sing  its  death-song 
when  it  is  caught  by  the  ice  of  a  freezing 
night  and  cannot  loose  itself  from  the  spot 
to  which  it  has  been  frozen. 

Kalev  the  father  of  Kalevipoeg,  whose  name 
is  also  found  in  Kalevala,  was  of  the  race  of 
giants  or  demi-gods.  A  widow  finds  a  pullet, 
a  starving  crow  and  partridge  egg ;  she  brings 
them  home  and  puts  them  in  her  locker.  The 
pullet  broods  the  egg  and  hatches  out  a  girl, 
Linda,  whose  name  means  bird ;  the  pullet 
herself  turns  into  another  girl  Salme;  and 
the  starved  crow  becomes  a  domestic  drudge. 
What  could  be  more  redskin  than  such  a 
legend  ?  Linda  is  wooed  successively  by  the 
sun,  the  moon,  the  winds,  the  water  and  the 
son  of  the  richest  king  of  the  North  —  all  in 
vain !  She  will  take  none  but  Kalev.  Their 
son  Kalevipoeg  "  Kalev's  boy  "  is  a  bird  of  a 
boy,  as  the  expression  runs  —  born,  be  it  noted, 
after  the  death  of  his  father  —  a  hero  of  enor- 
mous eating  and  drinking  powers,  of  colossal 

73 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

strength,  lazy,  but  not  good-for-nothing,  fated 
to  misfortune,  while  yet  a  lawgiver  and  ruler 
of  his  people. 

Throughout  his  life,  at  critical  moments, 
birds  are  ever  at  hand  to  warn  and  pilot  him 
through  the  dangers  that  beset  him.  As  Scan- 
dinavian Siegfried  is  led  by  birds,  so  is  also 
Kalev's  boy  ;  as  Siegfried  has  a  wondersword 
forged  and  kills  the  forge  mas- 
ter, so  Kalev's  boy,  and  he 
kills  the  smith's  son.  But  the 
crime  that  the  latter  commits 
with  this  sword,  and  the  story 
of  the  sword  as  the  avenger  on  its  own  mas- 
ter of  that  crime,  are  finer  touches  than  any- 
thing in  Siegfried's  tale.  Again,  the  adventure 
of  Siegfried  with  the  martial  Brunhild,  and  that 
of  the  prince  in  the  fairy-tale  with  the  sleeping 
beauty,  are  echoes  of  the  cuckoo  myth  based 
on  the  heroic  cuckoo  that  rouses  the  blossom 
—  that  enchanted  maid  of  spring  —  from  her 
long  winter  sleep.     We   shall    find  this   idea, 

74 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

now  happy,  now  tragic,  concealed  under  the 
history  of  other  heroes  in  very  distant  lands. 

The  parallel  with  Siegfried  goes  much 
farther,  if,  as  we  can  do  in  all  these  old  tales, 
we  put  Siegfried's  father  for  himself;  since  it  is 
the  commonest  of  all  traits  in  mythology  to 
find  the  same  plot  under  the  life  history  of 
father  and  son,  or  under  that  of  earlier  and  later 
folk-hero. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  Sigurd  dishonors 
his  own  sister ;  Kalevipoeg  also  ruins  his  sister, 
but  does  not  know  her  at  the  time.  As  soon 
as  she  learns  who  he  is,  she  throws  herself  into 
the  water,  and  in  later  versions  he  passes  on 
through  life  unwedded,  and,  though  boister- 
ously jovial,  yet  a  prey  to  remorse. 

The  very  same  story  occurs  as  an  episode 
about  a  subordinate  personage  in  the  Kalevala 
of  the  Finns.  The  brother  is  an  unlucky 
youth  of  giant  strength  named  Kullervo,  over 
whose  birth  the  poet  seems  intentionally 
obscure,  if  not  contradictory.     When  the  sister 

75 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

learns  who  he  is,  she  laments  the  mistake  and 
casts  herself  into  the  stream. 

Scarcely  had  the  maiden  spoken 

When  she  bounded  from  the  snow-sledge. 

Rushed  upon  the  rolling  river. 

To  the  cataract's  commotion. 

To  the  fiery  stream  and  whirlpool. 

Thus  Kullervo's  lovely  sister 

Hastened  to  her  own  destruction. 

To  her  death  by  fire  and  water. 

Found  her  peace  in  Tuonela, 

In  the  sacred  stream  of  Mana. 

(Rune  XXXV,  CrawforcPs  translation.) 

The  account  of  Kullervo's  birth  is  strangely 
muddled,  like  those  of  many  other  heroes  — 
Kalevipoeg,  Cuchullaind  of  Ireland,  Gwalchmei 
or  Gawayne  of  Britain.  His  race  is  obliterated 
by  an  envious  uncle,  Untamo  by  name ;  yet 
later  he  finds  father,  mother,  brothers  and 
other  sisters,  beside  the  one  who  drowned  her- 
self. It  is  as  if  he  found  them  again  in  the  under- 
world ;  but  if  so,  they  scorn  him  still  for  his 
crime.     One  reads  between  the  lines  that  he  is 

76 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

the  son  of  Untamo,  his  mother  being  Untamo's 
niece;  he  is  the  child  of  relatives  in  a  pro- 
hibited degree  and  as  such  is  fated  to  the  same 
crime.  In  fact  Kullervo,  like  Sigurd,  Kalevi- 
poeg  and,  as  we  shall  see,  Conchobar  of  Ire- 
land, are  variants  of  the  same  story,  and  that 
story  is  drawn  from  the  life  of  the  cuckoo,  the 
bird  whose  young  are  brought  up,  not  only 
apart  from  each  other,  but,  so  it  was  hitherto 
believed,  unknown  to  their  parents. 

Singular,  how  often  this  cuckoo  trait  ap- 
pears in  classical  mythology  !  Take  the 
ancestry  and  descendants  of  Picus,  the  Italiot 
god,  the  woodpecker,  which  we  have  been 
lately  considering.  Janus  and  Saturn,  to 
begin  with !  Janus  married  his  own  sister 
Camesa ;  he  was  the  old  war  god,  god  of  the 
year,  the  "janitor"  or  "opener"  of  the  year, 
after  whom  the  month  of  January  was  named. 
Saturn,  a  god  of  agriculture,  supposed  to  have 
come  to  Italy  in  Janus's  age,  married  his  own 
sister  Rhea   and  devoured  his  children  by  her 

77 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

—  a  foible  explained  by  the  belief  that  the 
mother  cuckoo  lays  her  eggs  in  another  bird's 
nest  to  hide  their  offspring  from  a  cannibal 
father. 

Picus  son  of  Saturn  is  an  exception  ;  he 
marries  a  daughter  of  Janus  named  Canens, 
whose  name  and  whose  fame  for  singing  in- 
dicate a  bird.  But  here  mythology  distin- 
guishes. The  woodpecker  cannot  have  the 
character  of  a  cuckoo.  But  when  in  this 
genealogy  we  descend  to  Faunus  the  son  of 
Picus,  the  cuckoo  crime  returns.  He  mar- 
ried his  own  sister  Fauna  and  was  a  sun  and 
forest  god  like  Pan,  bearing  indeed  a  name 
with  the  same  root  as  Pan. 

The  unlucky,  awkward  character  attributed 
to  the  cuckoo  has  left  a  trace  in  many  lan- 
guages. We  have  seen  how  gowk  and  gawk 
come  into  English  from  the  shorter  name  for 
the  bird;  to  this  we  may  add  old  English 
"  awke "  "  awkward "  from  the  same  word. 
The  hard  g  must  have  softened  intojy,  as  we 

78 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

find  it  in  Irish  and  in  dialects  of  German 
like  that  in  the  Mark  of  Brandenburg ;  later 
still,  even  the  y  sound  has  disappeared.  We 
can  thus  replace  with  a  simple  etymology 
that  labored  and  unconvincing  one  found  in 
the  dictionaries.  In  French  again  the  word 
"  gauche "  left  hand,  put  M.  Littre  to  his 
trumps.  Here  is  our  grayish-brown  friend 
again,  the  gawk,  German  Gauch,  with  the 
guttural  ch  softened  down  to  French  utter- 
ance. Hence  in  the  dialect  of  Craven  we 
have  gauk-handed  for  left-handed.  This  un- 
lucky, because  criminal,  bird  was  identified 
with  that  quarter  from  which  cold  winds  come, 
or  into  which  the  sun  plunges  and  perishes ;  it 
was  identified  with  the  side  turned  to  the  north 
or  the  west  —  which  came  about  in  this  way. 

The  early  European,  who  was  taught  to 
regard  the  sunrise  as  the  quarter  toward  which 
to  face  in  prayer  to  higher  beings,  found  the 
cold-bringing  north  winds  on  his  left,  the 
flower-bringing    south    winds    on    his    right. 

79 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

And  later,  if  the  lucky,  favorable  ideas  at  first 
associated  with  the  south  and  the  right  hand 
caused  him  to  turn  with  his  face  to  the  north, 
in  order  to  have  favorable  sunrise  on  his  right 
hand,  still,  the  left  would  be  unlucky,  because 
there  dies  the  sun,  there  dwell  the  dark  gods. 
The  notion  that  cuckoos  do  not  retire  to 
the  south,  but  hibernate  in  hollow  trees, 
sprang  up  from  observing  several  facts  and  put- 
ting wrong  constructions  on  them.  Cuckoos 
do  not  band  together,  like  swifts,  swallows, 
storks  and  cranes,  just  before  migrating  to 
warmer  lands ;  they  are  stealthy  birds  and 
after  ceasing  to  call,  still  lurk  about,  and  then 
are  gradually  missed  from  their  haunts  without 
any  action  to  show  what  they  intend.  The 
•mystery  was  solved  to  the  satisfaction  of  coun- 
try people  by  the  frequent  finding  of  cuckoos 
in  full  feather  in  the  hollows  of  old  trees, 
especially  of  willow-trees.  What  else  brought 
them  there,  except  it  were  to  sleep  out  the 
winter,  like  flies  and  many  insects  ?     It  was 

80 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 


not  observed  that  in  all  such  cases  the  cuckoo 
did  not  get  out  because  it  could  not.  In 
other  words,  it  was  a  pris- 
oner owing  to  the  stupid- 
ity of  its  parent. 

The  mother  cuckoo 
prefers  sheltered  nests  of 
other  birds  for  her  furtive 
laying,  and  often  cannot 
get  into  the  nest,  or  is  too 
sharply  watched  by  the  lit- 
tle'birds  to  allow  her  the 
time.  She  then  lays  her 
egg  on  the  ground,  takes 
it  delicately  in  her  beak, 
watches  the  propitious  moment  and  deposits  it 
in  the  nest.  Often  this  nest  is  in  the  hollow 
of  an  old  willow  and  has  been  chosen  by  the 
little  birds  because  of  its  narrow  entrance.  This 
is  an  additional  safeguard  against  intruders.  In 
her  hurry  to  commit  her  beguilement  Madam 
Cuckoo  does  not  reason  that  if  the  entrance 
6  8i 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

is  too  small  for  her  to  enter  by,  it  will  be  too 
small  for  the  full-fledged  young  cuckoo  to 
issue  from.  The  egg  is  deposited ;  later  on 
she  returns  and  removes  the  eggs  of  her  host. 
Foster-father  and  foster-mother  wear  out  their 
wings  and  beaks  in  bringing  the  young  cor- 
morant food ;  it  grows  bigger  and  bigger ; 
one  fine  day  it  tries  to  get  out  of  the  nest,  and 
finds  that  the  hole  is  too  small ! 

This  frequent  tragedy  in  bird-life  accounts 
for  the  discovery  of  dead  cuckoos  in  hollows 
of  trees,  for  the  firm  belief  still  cherished  by 
rustics  in  parts  of  Europe  that  the  cuckoo 
hibernates,  and  for  the  further  vilification  of 
the  poor  bird,  as  slothful,  slumbering,  torpid 
—  a  view  naturally  reinforced  by  the  observa- 
tion that  the  cuckoo  seems  too  lazy  to  build 
its  own  nest  and  rear  its  own  chicks. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  the  European  cuckoo 
lays  her  eggs  at  such  long  intervals  apart,  from 
a  week  to  ten  days,  that  she  would  have  great 
difficulty  in  rearing  a  brood.     The  first  chick 

82 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

would  certainly  kill  the  others,  as  they  suc- 
cessively appeared,  merely  by  its  own  weight. 
The  mother  cuckoo  is  not  to  be  whitewashed 
entirely;  but  she  is  not  the  heartless  volup- 
tuary she  has  been  supposed.  She  is  actively 
on  the  watch  over  six  or  seven  young  ones 
entrusted  to  the  care  of  as  many  nurses,  and 
stands  by  to  take  charge  of  a  squab  which  some 
foster-parent  of  uncommonly  sharp  understand- 
ing, or  uncommonly  sharp  temper,  has  thrown 
out  of  the  nest,  for  the  devil's  bantling  it  is ! 

The  old  English  song  of  spring  registers  the 
belief  that  the  cuckoo  never  bothers  itself  with 
labor  (swik)  — 

Wei  singes  thu  cuccu, 
Ne  swik  tliou  naver  nu. 
Sing  cuccu,  cuccu  — 

and  Middleton  has  left  on  record  the  con- 
tempt of  Englishmen  for  Welshmen,  or 
perhaps  Frenchmen,  in  the  phrase  "  Welsh 
ambassador  "  as  applied  to  the  cuckoo,  either 
because  Welshmen  came  down  in  spring  from 

83 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

the  hills  of  Wales  during  the  months  of  the 
cuckoo's  appearance  to  raid  or  to  work  in 
the  fields,  or  because  under  "Welsh"  we  are  to 
understand  French  and  foreigners  generally, 
and  the  cuckoo  was  observed  reaching  Great 
Britain  from  France.  Among  the  famous 
fools  in  Great  Britain  are  cited  the  "cuckoo- 
penners"  of  Somerset,  who  believed  they  could 
prolong  the  summer  by  caging  cuckoos. 

The  lazy  trait  of  the  cuckoo  appears  very 
strongly  expressed  in  the  Esthonian  hero, 
Kalev's  boy.  He  is  so  abnormally  lazy  that 
at  times  he  will  not  even  rouse  himself  when 
invaders  from  the  north  —  the  steel-clad  hosts 
with  icicles  for  spears  —  fall  upon  and  devas- 
tate Esthland.  So  with  Kullervo.  That  Fin- 
nish oaf  and  luckless  one,  his  laziness  as  well 
as  his  bird  origin,  appear  in  a  Finnish  fairy- 
tale related  of  a  youth  of  enormous  power  and 
ruinous  strength.  He  is  not  called  Kullervo, 
but  Munnapoika,  which  means  the  egg's  boy, 
the  Son  of  the  Egg. 

84 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

In  Wales,  too,  we  have  the  cuckoo  traits  in 
the  family  of  King  Arthur,  who  in  Mallory's 
tales  was  by  no  means  the  chaste  monarch 
Tennyson  makes  him.  King  Arthur's  parent- 
age was  unknown.  One  day  a  handsome  queen 
arrives  from  the  Orkneys  ;  she  is  the  wife  of 
King  Lot.  King  Arthur  succumbs  to  her 
charms.  Two  children  are  born  to  them, 
Gwalchmei,  who  becomes  Gawayne  or  Gauvain 
in  the  later  tales,  and  Modred,  who  destroys 
Arthur  and  his  knights.  Merlin  foretells  to 
Arthur  that  this  shall  be  his  fate  and  the  reason 
given  is  the  startling  one  —  that  the  wife  of 
King  Lot  is  no  other  than  Arthur's  sister!  The 
cuckoo  crime  has  occurred,  because  cuckoos 
cannot  recognize  their  own  brothers  and  sisters. 

Whatever  "  Modred "  may  mean,  we  can 
now  explain  the  name  of  Gwalchmei.  Accord- 
ing to  Professor  J.  Rhys,  Gwalchmei  means  the 
"  Hawk  of  May  "  ;  but  he  seems  not  to  under- 
stand why  Gawayne  should  be  so  termed. 
Yet  for  a  cuckoo  god  such  a  term  is  thoroughly 

8S 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Euro 


pe 


a  Welsh,  or,  for  the  matter  of  that,  Scandi- 
navian circumlocution  for  the  typical  bird  of 
May,  the  cuckoo.  The  cuckoo  is  slightly 
hawk-like  in  appearance,  especially  when  on 
the  wing ;  so  that  there  has  always  been  a 
widespread  idea  in  Europe  that  cuckoos  turn 
to  hawks  in  August.  Now  the  cuckoo  clew 
here  given  makes  things  clear.  It  was  said 
of  Gwalchmei  the  Good  that  his  strength  in- 
creased till  midday  and  decreased  till  sunset; 
the  idea  seems  borrowed  from  the  sun  ;  but  it 
may  allude  to  the  ceasing  of  the  cuckoo's  call 
in  midsummer. 

How  persistent  the  cuckoo  idea  was  in 
Greece  and  Italy  is  seen  from  the  forbidden 
relationship  of  the  gods  already  mentioned. 
From  Pausanias  we  learn  that,  in  order  to 
obtain  his  sister  Hera  for  his  wife,  Zeus  turned 
himself  into  a  cuckoo  and  flew  near  Hera, 
who  caught  and  played  with  him.  And  while 
Pausanias  protests  that  he  does  not  believe 
such  tales,  he  describes  a  statue  of  Hera  in  the 

86 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

Heraion,  not  far  from  Mykenai,  and  notes  that 
she  carries  in  one  hand  a  sceptre  on  which 
perches  a  cuckoo,  in  memory  of  the  stratagem 
of  Zeus.  Such  is  the  power  of  religion  !  Acts 
reprobated  by  the  Greeks  were  publicly  insisted 
upon,  dwelt  upon  in  their  monuments,  merely 
because  the  remote,  barbarous  past  had  mar- 
velled at  the  strange  acts  of  birds  and  made 
them  their  gods. 


TheGjarade  in  Ireland  &Per&ia*» 


CHAPTER   IV 

IT  was  observed  by  the  explorers  of  South 
America  that  certain  Indian  tribes  had  a 
most  singular  custom,  one  which  has  hitherto 
failed  to  be  explained.  When  a  child  was 
born  to  an  Indian  of  note,  the  father  was 
put  to  bed  and  tended  with  as  much  care  as 
if  he  were  the  mother.  This  went  so  far  that 
the  mother  was  neglected,  whilst  her  lord 
and  master  assumed  all  the  airs  of  the  real 
sufferer.  Certain  Tupi  tribes  still  practise  this 
custom  and  the  startling  fact  has  since  been 
observed  that  the  odd  habit  once  existed  among 
the    Basques    of  Spain.     It   is    less    generally 

88 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

known  that  the  couvade,  or  brooding,  existed 
among  the  ancient  inhabitants  of  Ireland,  where 
I  have  discovered  it  through  the  old  legends. 
Traces  of  the  same  thing,  as  I  shall  show, 
exist  in  Persia  also  among  the  stories  of  the 
Shah  Nameh. 

The  couvade  has  been  sought  to  be  ex- 
plained through  psychology,  as  if  it  were 
a  superstitious  belief  in  the  transfer  of  the 
mother's  identity  to  that  of  the  father;  but 
for  the  most  part  writers  have  been  content 
to  chronicle  the  extraordinary  freak  without 
looking  for  more  obvious  reasons  close  at 
hand,  namely,  in  the  keen  observation  of  the 
habits  of  birds  on  the  part  of  primitive  men 
and  in  consequence  a  childlike  imitation  on 
their  part  of  the  actions  of  birds. 

The  cuckoo  is  one  of  those  birds  which 
deserve  the  special  protection  of  men ;  because 
it  not  only  does  no  harm  to  crops,  but  spends 
its  entire  time,  unbothered  by  family  cares,  in 
reducing  the  foes  of  agriculture  and  forestry. 

89 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

It  is  a  bird  that  devours  vast  quantities  of 
hairy  caterpillars,  which  are  rejected  by  most 
insect-eating  creatures.  It  may  be  doubted, 
however,  whether  this  good  trait  had  much 
to  do  with  the  admiration  for  the  cuckoo 
among  early  men. 

In  Ireland,  as  in  Finland  and  Esthland, 
there  were  cuckoo  demigods.  They  are  not 
only  of  preternatural  strength  and  agility,  but 
subject  to  periods  of  apathy,  attributed  either 
to  fairy  blight,  or  —  what  tells  the  story  of  the 
meaning  of  these  things  the  plainest  —  the 
"couvade."  In  the  discovery  of  the  im- 
portance of  the  bird  gods  in  the  eyes  of  early 
peoples  and  in  the  connection  of  the  "couvade  " 
with  demigods  and  heroes,  clearly  birdlike  in 
their  main  traits,  we  have  the  long-sought 
clew  to  the  mystery.  We  may  guess  that  it 
began  with  the  observation  that  male  birds 
assisted  in  the  brooding  of  the  eggs.  After 
a  stage  in  which  the  father  was  treated  like 
the  mother  before  the  birth,  it  came  to    the 

90 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

stage  in  which  we  find  it,  namely,  treatment 
of  the  father  like  the  mother  after  the  birth 
in  connection  with  festivities  in  honor  of  the 
little  stranger. 

Yet,  one  may  say,  the  cuckoo  does  not 
brood  its  eggs.  Here  the  kindly  traits  of 
most  birds  became  blended  with  the  unnatural 
conduct  of  cuckoos,  and  were  applied  to  the 
same  bird  god,  whom  we  find  as  a  hero  in 
the  old  ballads. 

The  Irish  have  regarded  Fion  and  Cuchul- 
laind  as  historical  characters,  which  is  not  sur- 
prising, when  one  sees  the  way  in  which  the 
old  Irish  historians  provided  them  with  plausi- 
ble ancestors  and  dates.  But  those  whom  dates 
would  not  convince  are  still  loath  to  give  up 
the  actuality  of  heroes  about  whom  so  much 
that  is  possible  to  man  has  been  handed  down, 
and  relegate  them,  as  mere  abstractions,  to  the 
status  of  survivals  from  old  gods.  It  is  clear, 
however,  that  the  cycle  of  stories  about  Fion 
and  Oisin — the  Ossianic  heroes,  as  Macpher- 

91 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

son  called  them  —  and  the  cycle  of  stories  about 
Conchobar  and  Cuchullaind  are  at  bottom  the 
same ;  composed  at  different  periods,  they 
naturally  show  great  variations.  The  Fion 
cycle  is  more  chivalrous,  less  crammed  with 
unnecessary  bloodshed ;  while  that  of  Cuchul- 
laind is  wilder  and  more  savage.  In  the  Fion 
cycle,  again,  the  traits  of  Diarmuid  are  some- 
what like  those  of  Cuchullaind.  We  have 
something  like  the  same  distinction  in  the 
Kalevala  between  Vainamoinen  and  Lemmin- 
kainen.  Old  Vaino,  the  minstrel,  is  more  the 
savior  and  helper  of  his  people ;  Lemmin- 
kainen,  the  loose  lover,  is  a  headstrong  young 
fighter  and  magician,  like  Cuchullaind. 

Not  only  does  Cuchullaind  bear  obvious  in 
his  name  his  origin  as  a  cuckoo  god,  but  his 
birth,  exploits  and  death  are  those  of  a  cuckoo. 
Yet  the  Irish  labored  to  avoid  the  plain  in- 
ference from  the  sound  of  his  name,  and  a 
legend  grew  up  to  help  them.  The  boy  was 
originally    Setanta    by    name,   said   they,    and 

92 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

CuchuUaind  was  a  nickname  obtained  after 
this  wise :  One  night  when  he  followed  his 
"  uncle "  Conchobar  to  the  house  of  Culann, 
a  smith,  the  gates  were  locked  and  a  ferocious 
dog  lay  in  watch.  The  boy  killed  the  hound 
out  of  hand,  as  Herakles  overcame  Cerberus, 
and  Kalevipoeg,  the  watchdog  of  hell ;  and 
when  the  smith  lamented  his  loss,  Setanta  said 
"  I  will  be  your  cu  (dog)  until  another  is 
grown  large  enough  to  guard  your  house," 
whence  Setanta  was  called  CuchuUaind,  hound 
of  Culann. 

The  legend  is  the  result  of  a  forgetting  or 
intentional  ignoring  of  the  cuckoo,  perhaps 
owing  to  its  evil  repute,  and  also  of  the  high 
opinion  the  Irish  had  of  dogs,  which  they  bred 
very  well  and  for  which  they  were  famous  long 
ago.  Cu,  hound,  was  an  honor-name  for  a 
champion.  The  name  Setanta  may  be  ex- 
plained through  the  Finnish,  like  many  names 
in  Ireland  for  divisions  and  streams.  It  is 
evident  from   such   parallels    that,  before  the 

93 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

Kelts,  the  population  was  of  a  stock  similar  to 
Esthonian,  Finnish,  etc.  Now  Setanta  may  be 
explained  by  Finnish  for  uncle,  seta  (genitive 
-dan)  and  may  have  meant  "son  of  his  uncle  " 
for  reasons  about  to  be  explained.  But  the 
curious  word  Cuchullaind  is  explained  by 
Esthonian  Kukkulind  "cuckoo  bird."  With- 
out doubt  he  is  a  survival  of  a  bird  god  of  the 
Finnic  tribes  in  Ireland  conquered  by  the  Kelts. 
The  word  "lint"  for  bird  remains  in  the  Suf- 
folk dialect  of  England  in  lint-white,  a  local 
name  for  the  lark. 

The  accepted  description  of  CuchuUaind's 
birth  shows  his  bird  origin  very  clearly ;  no 
other  cuckoo  demigod  is  so  plainly  a  bird. 
His  mother  was  Dechtire,  who  was  sister  of 
King  Conchobar  of  Ulster  and  also  his  char- 
ioteer. One  legend  says  that  there  were  griev- 
ous scandals  regarding  Conchobar  and  his 
car-driving  sister.  But  a  more  veiled  account 
is  as  follows :  One  day  Dechtire  and  her  maids 
disappear    and  soon  after  news  is  brought  to 

94 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

Conchobar  that  wonderful  birds  with  gold 
chains  about  their  necks  have  been  seen  in 
the  land.  He  sets  out  to  hunt  them,  is  led 
to  a  palace  he  has  never  seen  before,  where 
is  a  beautiful  woman  with  attendant  maids, 
whom  he  does  not  recognize.  He  demands 
that  she  shall  be  his  wife,  but  she  says  she  is 
about  to  become  a  mother ;  and  that  same 
night  Setanta  or  Cuchullaind  is  born,  with 
features  like  Conchobar ! 

Throughout  his  career  this  child  of  doubtful 
origin  shows  the  cuckoo  or  bird  characteristics, 
not  once  or  twice,  but  a  dozen  times.  The 
dates  of  his  taking  arms,  his  first  adventure 
and  his  death  confirm  it,  if  we  put  weeks  for 
years  in  the  account  we  receive.  Thus,  at  seven 
weeks,  the  end  of  May  or  beginning  of  June,  a 
young  cuckoo  is  fledge :  at  seven  years  young 
Setanta  induced  his  "uncle"  to  grant  him 
weapons  and  harness,  or,  as  the  men  of  the  later 
Middle  Ages  would  say,  he  was  made  a  knight. 
At  seventeen  weeks,  the  end  of  July  or  begin- 

95 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 


ning  of  August,  the  cuckoo  has  deserted  its 
foster-parents :  at  seventeen  years  Setanta  or 
Cuchullaind  defended  Ulster  single-handed 
against  an  army.  At  twenty-seven  weeks,  or 
September,  the  cuckoo  disappears  into  hollow 
trees,  or  is  turned  to  a 
hawk ;  at  twenty-seven 
years  Cuchullaind  was 
slain  by  the  magic  of  the 
sons  of  Cailletin. 

His  origin  is  as  mys- 
terious and  veiledly  crimi- 
nal as  that  of  Arthur  in  Wales  or  of  Kullervo 
in  the  Kalevala.  Like  Kalevipoeg,  who  was 
born  of  Linda,  the  bird,  long  after  his  re- 
puted father  Kalev's  death,  and  took  the 
heritage  from  his  elder  brothers  by  beating 
them  at  hurling  the  stone,  Cuchullaind  thrashes 
and  completely  drives  off  fifty  boy-princes  in 
the  royal  school  to  which  he  comes  at  a  tender 
age.  These  feats  are  echoes  of  the  young 
cuckoo's  exploits  in  ridding  the  nest  of  such 

96 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Euro 


pe 


foster-brothers  as  may  have  escaped  the  vigi- 
lance of  Madam  Cuckoo  and  grown  up  to  be 
rivals  for  food  and  the  attention  of  his  foster- 
parents. 

In  looseness  of  morals  Cuchullaind  almost 
equals  Lemminkainen,  who,  as  we  have  seen, 
was  a  god  of  love.  Although  he  has  a  serious 
love  affair  and  a  wife,  yet,  whilst  he  is  be- 
trothed to  the  woman  he  afterward  marries,  he 
has  a  second  love  affair  in  Scotland.  More- 
over he  was  said  to  have  a  taboo  or  prohibition 
laid  on  him  not  to  wed;  and  cuckoos  were 
falsely  thought  to  have  no  regular  mate. 

In  the  stress  of  single  combat  Cuchullaind 
showed  his  bird  traits  with  singular  clearness. 
He  had  a  very  disagreeable  way  of  changing  in 
size,  becoming  diasthartha,  as  a  bird  ruffles  up 
its  feathers  in  fighting  and  appears  twice  its 
normal  size.  He  leapt  in  the  heat  of  combat 
on  to  the  rim  of  his  opponent's  shield.  In  his 
fight  with  the  giant  Goll  he  soared  up  and 
alighted  on  the  shield  of  Goll  "  like  any  bird 
7  97 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

of  the  air  "  says  the  story.  In  that  with  Eocho 
the  Blue-Green,  Cuchullaind  is  thrice  blown 
off  Eocho's  shield  into  the  sea  before  he  is  able 
to  overcome  that  huge  monster.  The  same 
cuckoo  will,  if  possible,  hold  the  same  district 
year  after  year  and  challenge  all  comers.  The 
combat  that  Cuchullaind  undertakes  for  Ulster 
is  the  war  that  a  cuckoo  makes  against  rivals 
who  invade  the  district  the  bird  has  seized 
as  its  own. 

In  Cuchullaind's  trip  to  Scotland  to  learn 
the  military  art  from  Scatach  "  the  Shadowy," 
an  Amazon  who  kept  a  military  school,  we 
have  the  annual  disappearance  of  cuckoos,  no 
very  good  long-distance  fliers,  across  the  Irish 
Sea  where  it  is  narrowest.  He  lands  on  Can- 
tire,  and,  proceeding  to  the  school,  has  a  love 
adventure  with  Aoife,  the  daughter  of  Scatach, 
who  bears  him  Conlaech,  but  after  he  has  re- 
turned to  Ireland.  Like  Oidipous,  and  like 
the  hero  Sohrab  of  Persia,  Conlaech  has  never 
seen  his  father ;  so  the  son  when  he  comes  of 

98 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Euro 


pe 


age  goes  to  Ireland  and  fights  with  his  father, 
because  it  was  supposed  that  neither  male  nor 
female  cuckoo  took  any  heed  of  their  off- 
spring and  therefore  the  latter  must  approach 
its  real  parents  as  a  total  stranger. 

Another,  more  poetic,  tale  of  Cuchullaind 
represents  the  cuckoo  as  the  bringer  of  spring. 
Along  with  other  heroes  he  goes  to  the  Isle 
of  Man  —  an  island  named  after  Mananan  of 
the  Sea,  a  god  of  the  under-world  of  waters, 
like  Mana  in  the  Kalevala  —  and  storms  a 
city  in  which  dwells  the  beautiful  Blathmaid 
"  Blossom."  He  loves  Blathmaid  and  she 
loves  him,  but  King  Curoi,  a  wizard  of  Kerry^ 
takes  her  from  him  as  his  share  in  the  spoils 
—  as  Agamemnon  took  Briseis  away  from 
Achilleus  —  and  carries  her  off  to  his  for- 
tress in  the  southwest  of  Ireland,  leaving 
Cuchullaind  bound  and  shorn  of  his  long 
hair. 

The  lovers  communicate ;  the  sign  for 
Cuchullaind   to  attack  the  fortress  and  carry 

99 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

off  Blathmaid  is  given  by  the  latter,  who 
pours  milk  into  the  stream  that  passes  the 
castle.  The  plot  succeeds  and  Curoi  is  killed, 
while  Cuchullaind  goes  off  with  Blossom  as  if 
he  had  no  wife  to  grieve  over  his  fickleness. 
In  this  fine  allegory  Curoi  is  winter,  Blathmaid 
the  flowers  of  spring  and  Cuchullaind  the  bird 
whose  notes  chase  winter  off  and  deliver  the 
flowers  from  their  icy  bondage.  Perhaps  the 
milk  in  the  stream  is  the  ice  floating  down  in 
sign  of  the  approaching  summer. 

In  his  book  on  the  poetry  of  the  Finns  the 
Italian  writer  Comparetti  lays  great  stress  on 
the  low  form  of  wizardry  and  magic  shown  by 
the  contests  of  Vainamoinen  with  Youkahai- 
nen,  and  the  preference  of  Lemminkainen  as 
well  as  Vainamoinen  for  conjuring  over  battle. 
But  the  same  traits  appear  in  Cuchullaind. 
On  his  voyage  to  Scotland  he  uses  "  sea 
magic "  like  a  Finnish  wizard ;  in  his  contest 
with  Eocho  Rond,  as  related  in  the  "  Feast  of 
Bricriu  "  in  which,  like  the  Finnish  conjurers, 

lOO 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

the  prize  is  the  hand  of  a  maiden,  Cuchullaind 
and  Eocho  Rond  use  magic  by  turns  in  order 
to  ward  off  each  other's  weapons. 

Cuchullaind  is  particularly  expert  with  the 
old  weapon  to  bring  down  birds  —  with  the 
sling,  David's  weapon,  the  natural  arm  of 
the  shepherd.  When  proceeding  against  Ailill, 
the  fairy  king  of  Connaught,  just  to  give  him 
a  taste  of  his  quality,  as  the  Irish  say,  he  killed 
with  a  cast  from  his  sling  a  bird  that  was  sit- 
ting on  Ailill's  shoulder.  A  very  curious 
weapon  called  the  gaebolg,  which  was  cast 
with  the  foot  along  the  surface  of  the  water, 
was  the  trump  card  of  Cuchullaind  when  en- 
gaged in  the  memorable  struggle  at  the  ford 
with  his  old  schoolmate  and  friend.  In  his 
fight  with  the  stranger  who  is  his  son  he  also 
used  the  gaebolg.  It  is  evidently  a  peculiar 
contrivance  to  kill  waterfowl  similar  to  fowl- 
ing spears  used  by  Eskimos  and  Lapps.  The 
Irish  legend  particularly  states  that  it  came 
"  from  the  eastern  parts  of  the  world,"  which 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

usually  means  the  Baltic,  when  the  actual 
direction  is  told.  In  Trinity  College,  Dublin, 
is  an  Irish  treatise  on  bird  auguries  which,  so 
far  as  I  know,  has  not  been  translated. 

Another  bird  trait,  which  he  shares  with 
Vaino  and  other  heroes  of  the  Finns  and 
Esths,  is  that  of  understanding  the  speech  of 
birds ;  it  is  his  own  language  !  He  is  expert 
in  capturing  birds.  In  one  story  he  hits  with 
his  sling  two  magic  birds  that  turn  into  Liban 
and  Fand,  daughters  or  wives  of  Mananan  of 
the  Sea,  who  have  fallen  in  love  with  him,  and  in 
consequence  drops  into  a  stupor,  becomes  half 
crazy  and  otherwise  shows  that  the  hibernating 
cuckoo  is  the  root  of  the  story. 

In  fact  we  must  regard  Cuchullaind  as  the 
cuckoo  god  pre-eminent,  a  typical  descendant 
in  myth  and  legend  from  a  deity  whose  traces 
are  found  in  nearly  every  part  of  the  world. 

That  this  is  not  an  extravagant  statement 
appears  when  we  examine  the  epic  of  the 
Persians,  the  Shah   Nameh,  in  which  the  old 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 


bird  gods  are  humanized  as  thoroughly  as  they 
have  been  in  Ireland's  legendry.  The  hero 
Sahm  exposes  his  son  Zal,  when  first  born,  on 
the  rocks  of  the  Elburz 
mountains,  where  the  Si- 
murg,  a  fabulous,  griffin- 
like bird,  finds  and  fos- 
ters him.  Sahm  sees  Zal 
standing  in  the  Simurg's 
nest  and  repents  and 
takes  him  back,  when 
he,  or  rather  the  young 
cuckoo,  is  grown.  Zal 
marries  Roodabeh  and 
calls  the  Simurg  to  her  help  when  she  is  about 
to  be  a  mother.  When  I  treat  of  the  eagle  the 
reason  for  this  office  of  the  Simurg  will  appear. 
Kai  Kaus,  the  Persian  king  of  the  same 
mythical  period,  makes  a  campaign  against 
the  deevs,  or  powers  of  darkness  and  winter, 
whose  king,  the  White  Giant,  overcomes  the 
invaders  by  magic  and  reduces  them  to  that 
103 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

impotent  condition  we  meet  so  often  in  Ire- 
land, where  Conchobar  or  Fion  is  the  victim, 
or  in  Finland,  where  it  is  Lemminkainen  or 
Youkahainen.  Rustem,  the  son  of  the  Zal 
who  was  nurtured  by  the  Simurg,  comes  to 
the  assistance  of  his  king  and  his  heroes 
and  slays  the  White  Deev,  as  Cuchullaind 
rescues  Conchobar  or  Fion.  Now  the  reason 
why  the  White  Deev  temporarily  overcomes 
the  Persian  king  and  heroes  is  the  same 
reason  found  in  Ireland  for  the  lethargy  that 
befalls  Conchobar  and  the  heroes  of  Ulster. 
It  is  the  woman's  helplessness  ;  it  is  the  cou- 
vade  !  I  suspect  the  whole  Kai  dynasty  of 
Persia  were  bird  heroes.  Did  not  Kai  Kaus 
attach  eagles  to  a  car  and  attempt  to  reach 
heaven  by  their  aid  ? 

But  much  earlier  bird-god  literature  existed 
on  the  Euphrates  among  the  Akkads.  The 
"  sin  of  the  god  Zu  "  was  the  stealing  of  some 
talisman  from  the  high  gods  Anu,  Bel  and 
Rimmon,  perhaps  the  sun  itself,  or  maybe 
104 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

some  wonder-working  thing  like  the  Kalevalan 
Sampo ;  for  the  tablets  are  too  broken  to  per- 
ceive clearly  what  it  was.  His  bird  character 
appears  in  a  fragment  concerning  a  certain  god 
Lugal-turda,  who,  like  Kullervo  and  other 
cuckoo  heroes,  had  neither  father  nor  mother : 

A  turban  be  placed  on  his  head 

When  from  the  nest  of  the  god  Zu  he  came, 

and  again  in  a  phrase  in  the  annals  of  Assur- 
nazir-pal,  "  like  the  divine  Zu  bird  upon  them 
darted."  The  late  George  Smith  very  acutely 
likened  the  Zu  bird  to  the  eagle  or  the  wood- 
pecker as  they  appear  in  the  folk-lore  of 
Europe.  As  to  Lugal-turda,  whom  I  suspect 
to  have  been  the  cuckoo,  he  translated : 

No  mother  gave  him  life. 

No  father  with  him  associated. 

No  noble  knew  him  ; 

Of  the  resolution  of  his  heart,  the  resolution  he  changed  not. 

In  his  own  heart  the  resolution  he  kept ; 

Into  the  likeness  of  a  bird  was  he  transformed. 

Into  the  likeness  of  the  divine  Zu  bird  was  he  transformed. 

105 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

But  to  return  to  the  Shah  Nameh :  other 
cuckoo  and  bird  traits  appear  in  the  life  of 
Rustem,  the  child  of  Zal  and  Roodabeh.  He 
is  not  exposed  or  put  away  to  foster,  but  he 
has  exactly  Cuchullaind's  adventures.  During 
a  raid  into  Turan,  Rustem  loves  Tehmineh, 
and  in  parting  tells  her  to  send  the  son  she  may 
bear  into  Persia  to  him.  Sohrab  their  son 
invades  Persia  —  as  Conlaech  invades  Ireland 
—  and  after  overcoming  everybody  else,  suc- 
cumbs to  his  unknown  but  invincible  father. 
Thus  we  have  the  same  story,  or  fragments 
of  the  same  story,  in  Italy  —  Janus,  Saturn, 
Faunus ;  in  Persia,  with  Sahm,  Zal,  Rustem 
and  Sohrab ;  in  Wales,  with  Arthur  and  his 
"  nephew  "  or  son  Modred ;  in  Ireland,  with 
Conchobar,  Cuchullaind  and  Conlaech ;  in 
Scandinavia,  with  Sigurd  and  his  sister ;  in 
Esthland,  with  the  Finnish  magician  and  Kale- 
vipoeg  and  the  island  maid ;  and  in  Finland, 
with  Untamo,  Kullervo  and  the  latter's  sister. 
We  shall  presently  see  it  in  Greece  also,  but 

io6 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

in  a  far  completer  state  than  the  story  of 
Tereus  and  Philomela  already  mentioned  in 
the  chapter  on  the  woodpecker. 

In  Ireland  it  is  not  Cuchullaind  alone  who 
is  a  cuckoo  god  made  man ;  the  cuckoo  shows 
in  his  ancestry.  We  have  seen  how  his  uncle, 
who  was  also  his  father,  has  the  cuckoo  trait. 
Now  that  same  parent  Conchobar  robs  his  own 
stepfather  of  his  kingdom,  as  the  young  cuckoo 
was  thought  to  devour  its  foster-father.  His 
wife  Meave  elopes  from  him  with  another 
chief,  as  the  female  cuckoo  was  supposed  to 
be  inconstant ;  and  their  daughter  pursues 
the  same  course  with  regard  to  her  husband. 
To  cap  the  climax,  in  an  aberration  of  mind, 
Conchobar  marries  his  own  mother  Nessa  and 
has  a  son  by  her,  Cormac  Conlingeas  by  name, 
a  famous  warrior  in  his  day ! 

These  ghastly  domestic  tragedies  can  now 
be  understood  as  poetic  changes  and  exag- 
gerations in  old  legends,  based  on  observation 
of  cuckoos,  their  actual  deeds  and  attributed 

107 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

moral  traits.  I  venture  to  say  that  in  almost 
every  legend  In  which  we  find  a  father  fighting 
with  a  son  whom  he  does  not  recognize  one 
may  detect  from  other  traits  that  it  is  based  on 
a  cuckoo  plot,  the  root  of  which  is  the  sin- 
gular habit  of  the  female  cuckoo  in  Europe, 
Asia  and  Africa  of  causing  other  birds  to  hatch 
her  eggs.  Such  are  not  only  the  Sohrab- 
Rustem  combats  and  the  Cuchullaind-Con- 
laech,  but  the  Russian  combat  of  llya  of 
Murom  with  his  son  Falcon,  and  the  early 
fragmentary  German  tale  of  Hildebrand  fight- 
ing with  his  son  Hadubrand  —  nay,  the  epi- 
sode in  classical  mythology  of  Saturn  overcome 
by  his  son  Jupiter. 

Hitherto  no  satisfactory  explanation  has 
been  given  for  the  remarkable  recurrence  of 
marriages  between  brother  and  sister  in  the 
mythology  and  legends  of  many  countries : 
such  as  Saturn  with  Rhea,  Zeus  with  Hera  — 
divine  marriages  which  were  undoubtedly  taken 
as  precedents  for  the  historical  marriages  of 
io8 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

the  same  sort  in  royal  houses,  such  as  that  of 
-A  tossa  of  Persia  and  the  Ptolemies  of  Egypt. 
Surely  it  is  worth  while  to  discover  that  these 
offensive  features  resolve  themselves  into 
unions  that  might  be  possible  in  a  family  of 
eccentric  birds ! 

The  evil  imagined  in  the  cuckoo  has  left  its 
trace  in  the  vulgar  speech  of  Germany.  Hoi' 
dich  der  Kuckuck  !  Das  weiss  der  Kuckuck  ! 
Der  Kuckuck  hat  ihn  hergebracht  —  "  The 
deuce  take  you  !  The  Old  Boy  knows  !  The 
devil  must  have  brought  him  !  "  —  show  that 
like  other  pagan  gods  the  cuckoo  god  was 
degraded  to  a  devil.  The  hoopoe  is  called  the 
cuckoo's  sexton  or  lackey,  and  the  wryneck  the 
cuckoo's  maiden,  perhaps  because  the  ancients 
fancied  that  the  bird  was  twisting  its  head 
round  to  see  its  admired  one,  the  cuckoo. 

The  blacker,  more  criminal  idea  of  the 
cuckoo  has  found  its  way  into  the  great 
dramas  of  the  world  with  Oidipous  —  "  Swell- 
foot  the  Tyrant "  —  by  Sophocles.  The 
109 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

swollen  foot  seems  an  echo  of  the  feathered 
legs  of  the  cuckoo.  The  crimes  of  Oidipous 
consisted  of  his  slaying  the  father,  who,  be- 
cause of  a  menacing  prophecy,  had  sent  him 
away,  and  of  his  marriage  to  his  own  mother. 
His  fate  includes  the  crime  of  Conchobar  of 
Ireland,  who  married  his  mother,  and  Kullervo 
of  Finland,  who  killed  his  father-uncle,  perhaps, 
also,  Kalevipoeg  of  Esthland,  if  we  regard  the 
Finnish"  magician  as  his  real  father.  When 
the  mother  of  Oidipous  discovers  the  situation, 
she  kills  herself,  just  as  Aino 
drowns  herself  because  of 
Vaino,  and  the  sisters  of  Kul- 
lervo and  Kalevipoeg  throw 
themselves  into  the  water. 
In  connection  with  Oidipous  we  find  the 
sphinx,  who  puts  each  aspirant  to  the  kingship 
a  question  he  cannot  solve  and  kills  him  when 
his  ignorance  is  shown.  Pausanias  explains 
that  the  sphinx,  that  four-footed  creature  with 
head  and  breasts  of  a  woman,  was  the  daughter 
no 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

of  Laius,  the  father  of  Oldipous.  Her  puzzle 
was  a  family  question  that  no  one  who  was  not 
truly  a  son  of  Laius  could  answer ;  thus  she 
kept  false  pretenders  from  the  throne. 

Having  now  the  clew  in  the  cuckoo  to  the 
Laius-Jocasta-Oidipous  legend,  the  question 
arises  what  the  sphinx  might  be.  I  think  it 
safe  to  say  that  the  sphinx  is  a  Greek  em- 
broidery upon  the  owl,  her  figure  having  been 
suggested  by  the  winged  lions  of  the  Euphrates 
valley,  familiar  not  only  to  Greek  travellers, 
but  to  all  who  purchased  from  the  Phoenician 
merchants  those  gold  and  copper  vessels  carved 
with  winged  beasts  which  were  made  in  Asia. 
We  get  thus  an  explanation  of  the  sphinxes 
on  the  helmet  of  the  great  statue  of  Pallas 
Athene  in  the  Parthenon  described  by  Pau- 
sanias.  They  were  merely  more  elegant  and 
artistic  forms  of  the  homely  owl,  the  bird  of 
Minerva,  whose  history  I  shall  try  to  trace 
in  the  following  chapter. 

The  Oidipous  story  entire  has  been  found  in 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

Finland,  but  modernized.  Two  magicians  who 
can  read  the  future  stay  the  night  at  a  farm- 
house where  the  wife  is  about  to  become  a 
mother.  They  prophesy  that  the  child  will  be 
a  boy  who  will  kill  his  father  and  marry  his 
mother.  It  is  a  boy;  and  the  father  is  for 
killing  him,  but  at  the  mother's  prayer  he 
binds  the  baby  to  a  plank  and  sets  it  adrift 
on  the  river.  The  plank  goes  ashore  near  an 
abbey ;  the  child  is  reared  by  the  monks  and 
takes  a  place  as  farm  hand  with  his  own  father. 
He  is  ordered  to  watch  a  field  of  turnips  at 
night  and  kill  any  thieves  ;  his  father  forgets 
his  own  order,  goes  out  at  night  to  gather 
turnips  and  is  killed.  In  time  the  widow 
marries  the  farm  hand,  and  one  day,  when  the 
young  husband  is  bathing,  discovers  by  a  birth- 
mark what  she  has  done. 

Many  and  most  curious  are  the  analogies 
between  the  myths  and  the  names  of  Ireland 
on  the  one  hand,  Finland  and  Esthland  on  the 
other.     The    name    of   the    Shannon   can   be 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

explained  as  "  dark-blue  "  from  an  Esthonian 
word.  Tara's  hill  in  Meath  with  its  royal 
town,  said  to  have  been  there  in  Saint  Patrick's 
day,  is  strangely  like  Taara's  hill  in  Esthland, 
where  Kalev's  son  founded  a  city  over  the 
tomb  of  his  reputed  father.  The  Tuatha  de 
Danann,  that  people  of  the  misty  Druidical 
Irish  past,  famous  for  their  knowledge  of 
metal-  and  magic-making,  receive  a  lurid  light 
from  the  under-world  when  considered  to 
mean  "  Folk  of  the  Dark  Gods  "  not  "  Folk 
of  the  Two  Dananns."  They  are  the  Tonn, 
Tonni  of  the  Esthonians,  spirits  whose  im- 
ages were  used  in  witchcraft,  the  Tonndi  of 
the  Finns,  kobolds  and  devils,  denizens  of 
Tuonela  the  under-world.  But  their  pleasant 
traits  show  that  they  escaped  the  damning  of 
Christian  teachers,  who  always  sought  to  de- 
grade the  heathen  upper  gods  to  evil  spirits 
and  the  gods  of  the  under-world  to  the 
depths  of  brimstone   and   hell-fire.     And  the 

Fir-bolgs,  another  mysterious  race,  over  whose 
8  113 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

origin  and  meaning  the  Irish  have  allowed 
their  fancy  the  widest  range,  may  find  their 
analogy  through  the  Finnish  polkea,  to  over- 
throw, oppress  —  the  meaning  being  the  op- 
pressed tribes  (palkkamies)  namely  the  early 
Finnic  tribes  subjugated  and  in  part  driven 
westward  into  Connaught  by  their  Keltic  con- 
querors. In  Irish  the  pawns  in  chess,  which 
represent  the  lowest  men  in  the  social  order, 
are  called  ferbolg,  as  if  one  said  serfs.  And 
when  the  Fir-bolgs  are  asked  to  move  from 
the  west  into  Ulster  the  old  Finnic  hero 
CuchuUaind  takes  them  under  his  protection. 
But  they  are  badly  treated  and  fly  to  Con- 
naught  once  more. 

There  is  a  strong  parallel  between  Lemmin- 
kainen  or  Ahti,  god  of  the  waters — who  is  the 
male  god  of  love  beside  Lemmetar  the  Finn- 
ish Aphrodite  —  and  Fion  of  Ireland,  at  least 
so  far  as  certain  of  their  exploits  are  concerned ; 
in  others  it  is  CuchuUaind  who  furnishes  the 
analogies.  Fion  and  Lemminkainen  are  both 
114 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Euro 


pe 


deserted  by  their  wives.  One  day  Fion  meets 
a  beautiful  woman  who  is  weeping  for  her  ring 
which  has  fallen  into  a  deep  lake ;  gallantly  he 
dives  for  it,  but  when  he  brings  it  up  he  is  an 
old  man,  withered  and  old  like  Vaino.  Lem- 
minkainen  tries  for  the  hand  of  one  of  Louhi's 
daughters  —  Louhi  of  Pohjola,  the  Hag  of  the 
North.  But  he  comes  off  worse  than  Fion, 
He  goes  to  Hades  at  the  request  of  Louhi,  is 
killed  and  his  body  cut  to  pieces,  like  that  of 
Osiris  of  Egypt.  Fion  is  restored  to  his  own 
shape  and  Lemminkainen's  mother  gathers  up 
his  scattered  members  and  brings  him  back 
to  life.  Both  derive  from  the  cuckoo,  which 
has  lost  its  life  or  its  youth  in  autumn,  but 
returns  in  spring. 

These  parallels  are  such  as  to  exclude  the 
idea  that  they  are  direct  transplantations  from 
Finland  to  Ireland,  or  from  Ireland  to  Fin- 
land, since  they  vary  from  each  other  in  too 
many  particulars.  They  testify  to  a  common 
origin  which  lies  so  very  far  back  that  we  must 
"5 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

believe  them  survivals  from  a  common  stock, 
belonging  to  a  race  whose  language  and  ideas 
at  one  time  ruled  Europe,  and  whose  dialects, 
where  they  happened  to  survive,  differed  at 
that  remote  epoch  comparatively  little  the  one 
from  the  other.  Fion's  cuckoo  traits  are  seen 
in  the  adventure  of  Oisin's  captivity  in  a  cave. 
Oisin  the  son  of  Fion  is  caught  by  fairies  in 
a  cave ;  but  he  snips  off  a  piece  from  the  shaft 
of  his  spear  each  day  and  casts  it  into  a  stream. 
Fion,  searching  for  his  boy,  sees  the  chip  and 
rescues  him.  This  is  the  cuckoo  reared  in  a 
nest  from  which  it  cannot  escape. 

The  Slavic  nations,  with  whom  in  the  past 
as  in  the  present  Finns  and  Esths  have  been 
in  closest  contact,  were  great  favorers  of  the 
cuckoo.  The  Poles  called  him  Zezula ;  in 
heathen  times  they  had  a  goddess  Zywie 
with  a  temple  on  Mount  Zywiec,  where  they 
prayed  for  health  and  long  life.  It  recalls 
the  cuckoo-mount  near  Mases  in  Corinth 
with  its  temple  to  Zeus,  erected  because  Zeus 
ii6 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

turned  himself  there  into  a  cuckoo.  This 
goddess  was  thought  to  have  turned  herself 
in  like  fashion  into  a  cuckoo.  When  the 
sound  of  the  cuckoo  call  first  strikes  your  ear 
in  spring,  or  even  first  in  the  morning,  you 
must  have  some  gold  or  silver  in  your  pocket, 
if  you  hope  to  be  rich  for  the  rest  of  the  year. 
If  you  hear  the  call  whilst  hungry,  you  will 
suffer  for  the  year  from  a  superabundance  of 
the  "  best  sauce." 

The  latter  idea  gave  rise  to  a  habit  which 
has  hygienic  value,  namely,  that  of  always 
eating  a  mouthful  before  going  out  in  the 
morning ;  it  is  prettily  expressed  by  a  word 
in  Kalevipoeg,  Canto  XI,  line  3,  where  linnu- 
pete  is  found.  Before  he  sets  out  to  wade 
across  Lake  Peipus,  lazy  giant,  Kalev's  boy 
takes  a  linnupete.  Linnu,  lind,  means  bird, 
pete  deceit;  linnupete  means  the  bird  deceiver; 
something  that  defeats  the  magic  of  birds. 
Wiedemann  explains  this  word  as  :  "  Breakfast, 
which  is  taken,  through  superstition,  in  spring 
117 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

before  going  out,  in  order  not  to  hear  the 
cuckoo  on  an  empty  stomach."  Perhaps  this 
testifies  more  powerfully  than  the  legends  of 
cuckoo  heroes  to  the  vast  background  of 
belief  in  bird  magic  and  bird  prophecy,  a  faint 
sketch  of  which  I  am  trying  to  trace. 

The  Egyptians,  too,  had  their  stories  which 
point  to  the  cuckoo  as  their  visible  starting- 
point.  There  is  that  of  Osiris  and  his  sister 
Isis,  whose  son  was  the  hawk  Horus.  Osiris 
is  cut  to  pieces  like  Lemminkainen,  and  his 
scattered  limbs  are  found  and  collected  by 
his  sister-wife,  as  Lemminkainen's  by  his 
mother. 

"It  is  this,  the  beneficent,  the  avenger  of 
her  brother  "  says  the  Hymn  to  Osiris  trans- 
lated from  the  stele  in  the  Bibliotheque  Na- 
tionale  by  M.  Chabas ;  "  she  unrepiningly 
sought  him :  she  went  the  round  of  the  world 
lamenting  him ;  she  stopped  not  till  she  found 
him.  She  shadowed  with  her  wings  ;  her  wings 
caused  wind,  making  the  invocation  of  her 
ii8 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Euro 


pe 


brother's  burial ;  she  raised  the  remains  of  the 
god  of  the  resting  heart :  she  extracted  his 
essence :  she  had  a  child,  she  suckled  the  baby- 
in  secret ;  none  knew  where  that  happened. 
The  arm  of  the  child  has  become  strong  in  the 
great  dwelling  of  Seb." 

Here  Horus  is  the  returning  spring,  the  son 
of  the  cuckoo  that  turns  into  a  hawk,  the 
cuckoo  whose  death  is  as  mysterious  as  his 
birth. 

A  very  curious  story  called  "  The  Tale  of 
Setnau  "  seems  to  contain  the  cuckoo  myth  in 
secondary  form,  that  of  the  folk-tale,  where 
the  crime  of  marriage  between  brother  and 
sister  is  made  to  entail  disaster.  So  far  as  we 
can  see  the  marriage  of  Isis  and  Osiris  did  not 
occasion  the  mutilation  of  the  latter.  But  the 
tale  of  Setnau  found  in  a  papyrus  begins  with 
an  enforced  marriage  between  Ptah-Nefer-Ka 
and  his  sister  Ahura,  although  each  desires  to 
marry  some  one  else.  Soon  are  developed  the 
avenging  fates !  The  brother  insists  on  raising 
119 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

a  book  of  magic  from  the  bottom  of  the  sea ; 
whereupon,  first  their  child  Merhu,  then  Ahura, 
and  finally  Ptah-Nefer-Ka,  plunge  into  the  Nile 
and  are  drowned.  Egypt,  we  remember,  is 
the  land  where  the  royal  family  was  condemned 
to  the  closest  interbreeding,  even  as  late  as  the 
Ptolemaic  line.  Such  tales  bear  out  the  belief 
that  the  bird  heads  seen  on  the  sceptres  of  the 
gods  in  Egyptian  mural  inscriptions  are  heads 
of  cuckoos. 


Paan  the.  Pecueoek -^ 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  peacock  "with  his  aungelis  clothis 
bryghte "  is  a  synonym  for  brainless- 
ness  ;  the  small  size  of  its  head,  its  harsh  voice 
and  the  ugliness  of  its  legs  have  been  con- 
trasted in  witty  antithesis  with  the  extraordi- 

X2I 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

nary  splendor  of  its  crest,  neck  and  long  wing 
coverts,  and  the  haughtiness  of  its  demeanor. 
Those  who  have  not  seen  the  cock  bird  mak- 
ing love  to  the  demure  hen  have  missed  one 
of  the  most  curious  sights.  After  strutting 
for  some  time  with  his  fan  of  gorgeous  plumes 
upright,  he  will  approach  his  partner,  and, 
with  a  trembling  in  every  plume  well  cal- 
culated to  bring  each  glister  and  glint  of 
color  into  play,  and  at  the  same  time  to  pro- 
duce a  gentle  humming  sound,  he  will  gradu- 
ally curve  the  long  feathers  forward  over 
himself  and  her,  until  the  two  stand  in  a 
green-gold  bower  of  beauty. 

Whether  it  was  merely  the  superbness  of 
the  feathers  of  the  peacock,  or  also  the  fact 
that  the  bird  gives  its  calls  before  rain,  and 
in  its  native  wilds  issues  a  hoarse  warning  of 
the  presence  of  its  foe,  the  tiger  —  at  any  rate 
in  its  wild  and  half-tamed  state  in  Ceylon 
and  South  India  it  has  always  been  a  magic 
bird,  protected  from  extinction  by  the  super- 

122 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

stition  that  to  kill  it  was  to  offend  a  god. 
Doubtless  in  earlier  days  and  in  its  simpler 
form  this  belief  considered  the  peafowl  as 
the  embodiment  of  some  god  of  the  forest 
whose  resentment  it  were  wise  not  to  rouse. 
For  several  centuries  at  least  it  has  been  the 
special  companion  of  Subhramanya,  a  son  of 
Vishnu. 

From  Ceylon  to  Lapland  seems  a  far  cry, 
but  there  are  many  instances  of  analogies  be- 
tween far  separated  ideas  and  things  which 
would  seem  improbable  to  us,  if  they  were 
not  so  familiar.  Families  in  Scandinavia  and 
England  bear  the  lion  in  their  crests  or  coats ; 
yet  the  lion  is  not  known  to  have  penetrated 
Europe  or  central  Asia.  I  do  not  mean  to 
say  that  the  peacock  reached  Lapland  as  a 
bird  god  or  the  animal  emblem  of  a  god  ;  yet, 
being  transportable,  it  did  reach  Europe,  not- 
withstanding the  fact  that  it  is  not  a  native 
and  reached  it  to  become  the  emblem  of 
various  deities. 

123 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

The  best  known  of  these  is  Juno  or  Hera, 
whom  we  have  already  spoken  of  as  cuckoo- 
like in  her  relation  to  Zeus.  Her  proud 
chariot  is  drawn  by  peacocks,  birds  whose 
introduction  into  Greece  from  India  is  as- 
cribed to  Alexander  the  Great,  though  their 
attribution  to  Hera  shows  that  they  must  have 
been  highly  prized  long  before.  Indeed  Solo- 
mon, that  ruler  of  the  demons  and  birds  as 
Mohammedans  know  him,  imported  peacocks 
from  India.  If  we  place  Solomon  about  950 
before  Christ,  the  date  is  not  far  removed  from 
that  at  which,  according  to  Terrien  de  la 
Couperie,  the  Chinese  first  saw  the  Indian 
bird.  What  store  the  Chinese  set  by  its 
feather  we  all  know;  its  presence  in  a  cap  sig- 
nifies a  high  rank.  Europe  must  have  had 
plenty  of  time  in  which  to  have  made  certain 
changes  of  fashion  in  the  birds  attached  to  cer- 
tain deities  before  the  Greeks  arrived  in 
Greece,  and,  learning  the  use  of  the  alphabet 
from  the  Phoenicians,  set  down  the  attributes 
124 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

of  the  various  gods  in  writing  for  the  benefit 
of  Europe  in  after  ages. 

It  is  a  characteristic  of  folk- tales  and  ballads 
by  the  people's  bards  to  ring  the  changes  on 
some  few  notes,  to  revamp  the  same  plot,  re- 
tell with  superficial  variations  the  same  story. 
In  the  Finnish  legends  the  doings  of  Vaino, 
the  old  and  the  sage,  of  Ilma- 
rinen,  the  inventive  and  firm- 
spirited,  of  Lemminkainen  and 
Youkahainen,  the  young  and 
flighty,  often  overlap,  so  that 
it  is  plain  they  are  but  variations  on  one  origi- 
nal godhead.  Vaino  has  won  the  right  to  the 
hand  of  Youkahainen's  sister  Aino  by  van- 
quishing that  young  upstart  of  a  Druid  in 
wizardry ;  but  Aino  shows  her  relationship  to 
the  various  luckless  sisters  of  cuckoo  gods 
by  drowning  herself  rather  than  marry  him. 
In  the  ballads  as  we  have  them  the  reason  is 
no  longer  a  discovery  of  unlawfiil  closeness  of 
blood ;  it  is  incompatibility  of  age.     We   have 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

in  the  first  chapter  noticed  Aino  after  she 
suffered  a  sea  change ;  here  she  is  about  to 
take  the  leap. 

The  violence  of  Aino's  grief  betrays  the  fact 
that  something  worse  than  merely  marriage 
with  an  old  man  lies  behind  her  words.  She 
is  the  same  person  as  Syrinx,  the  nymph  who 
flees  from  Pan  and  turns  to  a  reed  rather  than 
yield  to  his  embraces.     Vaino's  bride  exclaims  : 

Better  had  it  been  for  Aino 
Had  she  never  seen  the  sunlight. 
Or  if  born  had  died  an  infant. 
Had  not  lived  to  be  a  maiden 
In  these  days  of  sin  and  sorrow 
Underneath  a  star  so  luckless  ! 
Needed  then  but  little  linen. 
Needed  but  a  little  coffin 
And  a  grave  of  smallest  measure. 

As  Aino  leaps  into  the  water  she  addresses 
her  sister  in  words  that  bring  the  Finnish 
nymph  very  close  to  Syrinx  of  Arcadia : 

Sister  dear,  I  sought  the  sea-side. 

There  to  sport  among  the  billovi^s. 

126 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

With  the  stone  of  many  colors 

Sank  poor  Aino  to  the  bottom 

Of  the  deep  and  boundless  blue-sea. 

Like  a  pretty  song-bird  perished. 

Never  come  to  lave  thine  eyelids 

In  this  rolling  wave  and  seafoam. 

Never  during  all  thy  lifetime. 

As  thou  lovest  sister  Aino. 

All  the  waters  in  the  blue-sea. 

All  the  fish  that  swim  these  waters. 

Shall  be  Aino's  flesh  forever; 

All  the  willows  on  the  seaside 

Shall  be  Aino's  ribs  hereafter  ; 

All  the  seagrass  on  the  margin 

Will  have  grown  from  Aino's  tresses^ 

(J^alevala,  Ru/te  IV,  Crawford's  translation.) 

The  separation  of  Vaino  from  Lemmin- 
kainen  and  Ilmarinen,  and  the  separation  of 
all  three  from  Pikker  must  be  very  ancient ; 
for  as  Pikker,  the  Finnish  god  of  thunder, 
leads  back  to  Italy  and  discovers  Picus,  so 
Vaino  leads  thither  and  discovers  Faunus. 
But  Faunus  is  no  other  than  Pan  of  the  old 
Arcadians  in  Greece.     Vaino,  Faunus  and  Pan 

127 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

have  a  Keltic  namesake  and  parallel  in  Fion 
of  Ireland,  whose  troops  were  the  Fianna  or 
Fenians.  If  the  latter  are  not  given  the  hairy 
legs  and  horns  of  the  Pans,  Panisci,  Fauni, 
they  were  nevertheless  creatures  of  the  woods 
who  lived  all  summer  in  the  open  and  only 
quartered  themselves  in  winter  on  the  country 
folk. 

The  variation  of  P  into  F,  of  F  into  V  or 
W,  is  a  matter  of  little  moment ;  these  names 
are  the  same,  though  they  appear  so  far  apart 
and  in  so  many  differing  tongues.  What  was 
formerly  called  Finntraighe  in  Ireland  is  now 
Ventry.  The  island  of  Ventotene,  west  of 
Naples,  is  the  ancient  Pandataria.  The  name 
of  Pan  was  Phan  in  one  part  of  Greece  ;  and 
we  may  safely  interpret  the  name  of  the  bird 
phoenix,  and  the  name  given  by  the  Greeks  to 
the  sea-faring  inhabitants  of  Canaan,  the  PhcE- 
nicians,  as  at  root  the  same  as  the  name  of  the 
Arcadian  god.  The  ideas  of  brightness  and 
redness  we  may  hold  to  be  of  later  invention, 
128 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

after  the  tongues  which  might  have  explained 
the  root  had  disappeared  from  Greece. 

Pan  was  a  far  older  god  on  classic  soil  than 
Zeus  or  Apollo  or  Hera  or  Mercury  —  gods 
who  usurped  certain  parts  of  him,  gods  who 
show  his  attributes  separated  and  differentiated. 
In  a  language  like  Finnish  the  vowel  in  Pan 
would  be  broken  up  into  several,  as  we  see  by 
his  parallel,  Vainamoinen.  We  see  the  same 
in  Pan's  name  in  oldest  Greece  :  Paian,  Paieon. 
The  Greeks  of  Aryan  blood,  the  intrusive 
Greeks,  did  not  ignore  him  entirely  when  they 
dispossessed  him  from  Olympus  and  enthroned 
Zeus  there,  when  they  forced  him  to  give 
quarters  to  Apollo  on  Mount  Lycaeus.  Homer 
speaks  of  him  as  Paian,  or  Paieon,  the  healing 
god,  as  Welcker  pointed  out  long  ago.  The 
worshippers  of  Phoebus  Apollo  merely  re- 
peated his  name  when  they  shouted  their 
"  paeans  "  and  it  is  again  the  name  of  this  old 
god  which  we  find  in  that  of  the  Paiones, 
tribes  of  Thessaly  and  Macedonia  who  spoke 
9  129 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

quite   another   tongue  from   Greek   and    later 
gave  their  name  to  Pannonia. 

Pan,  then,  once  the  chief  god  of  all  that 
part  of  Europe,  has  a  parallel  in  Vaino  among 
the  Finns.  As  the  latter  is  always  unfortunate 
in  love,  as  he  pursues  Aino  till  she  drowns 
herself,  so  Pan  is  rarely  successful ;  in  the 
case  of  Syrinx  he  loses  her  on  the  borders 
of  the  stream.  Vaino  invents  the  kantele ; 
Pan,  the  pipes.  The  form  we  meet  him  in 
among  the  Aryan  Greeks  is  a  mere  fragment 
of  what  he  was  :  for  he  has  parted  with  his 
thunder  to  Zeus ;  his  eloquence  and  song  and 
sun  traits  and  ill  success  with  nymphs  to 
Apollo ;  his  magic  to  Mercury;  his  water 
craft  to  Neptune.  When  Pan  reaches  out  to 
seize  the  lovely,  fleeing  Syrinx  by  the  hair 
and  grasps  the  blades  of  the  reeds,  he  consoles 
himself  with  the  pipes  that  he  fashions  from 
them.  Vaino  is  an  "  all-round "  god  who 
fashions  his  harp  from  the  head  of  a  giant 
sturgeon  or  pike,  and  while  driving  off  his 
130 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

own   melancholy  by  music,  is   also   intent  on 
improving  his  people  by  what  he  sings. 

We  only  know  Pan  as  the  god  of  shepherds 
and  rustic  Arcadians  rebellious  to  the  military 
tyranny  of  the  Laconians,  a  deity  of  the  earlier 
folk  of  Greece  who  retired  before  the  Dorian 
Greeks,  conquerors  of  the  Peloponnesus,  into 
their  forests  and  hills.  There  is  no  reason  to 
believe  that  Pan,  if  he  was  portrayed  by  them, 
was  made  to  look  like  the  shaggy  goat  god 
we  find  him  in  classic  art.  That  is  but  a  Greek 
way  of  expressing  the  rudeness  of  his  effigies 
and  the  clumsy  barbarism  of  his  devotees. 
The  Greek  exercised  his  wit  on  the  older 
populace  by  lampooning  their  god.  It  was 
not  till  after  Marathon  was  fought  that  the 
Athenians  admitted  Pan  to  a  place  among  the 
minor  deities  and  dedicated  a  temple  to  him 
on  the  acropolis.  Yet  he  is  a  god  who  has 
given  his  name,  as  just  remarked,  to  several 
great  peoples  of  the  past — the  Phcenicians, 
Paiones  and  Pannonians,  the  Venedae  of  the 
131 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

Baltic,  the  Veneti  of  the  Adriatic,  and  to  many 
cities  including  Vienna  (the  Vindobona  of  the 
Romans)  and  to  Venice.  Pan  is  not  dead. 
As  Finn  mac  Cool  he  lives  in  the  fairy  stories 
and  tales  of  giants  told  in  Ireland;  and  as 
Vaino  he  is  still  much  more  than  a  name  in 
song  among  the  Finns. 

We  have  seen  that  the  eagle  and  the  cuckoo 
are  birds  that  are  often  associated  with  Vaino 
and  doubtless  these  are  the  birds  that  the 
earliest  beliefs  gave  to  him.  But  at  a  very 
early  period  the  splendor  of  the  exotic  peacock 
made  the  ancient  inhabitants  of  Greece  asso- 
ciate that  bird  with  a  representative  of  the 
sun,  such  as  Pan  was.  Later  he  had  to  part 
with  his  eagle  to  Zeus  and  his  peacock  to 
Hera;  but  we  can  guess  that  the  peacock 
was  first  assigned  to  him,  because  in  Europe, 
with  few  exceptions.  Its  name  is  a  variant 
on  that  of  Pan  and  generally  keeps  the  ini- 
tial P,  even  when,  as  in  Latin  pavo,  Esthonian 
pabu,  it  drops  the  n.  Catalonian  has  an  odd 
132 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

form  pago ;  Burgundian  French  had  paivo ; 
but  the  Berry  dialect  retains  the  n  in  pante, 
peahen.  The  Irish  call  the  peacock  payal, 
but  write  the  word  as  if  it  had  been  padgal. 
Identified  through  the  gorgeousness  of  its 
feathers  and  especially  through  the  spots  on 
the  long  plumes,  the  eyes  that  suggest  the 
red-gold  "eye  of  day,"  it  could  not  fail  to 
obtain  the  name  that  referred  to  the  sun,  the 
day  and  splendor,  at  the  same  time  that  it 
meant  a  bird  god  honored  throughout  Europe 
for  his  prophetic  minstrelsy.  Roman  potters 
often  stamped  a  figure  of  the  peacock  with 
plumes  displayed  on  their  little  pottery  hand 
lamps. 

We  are  told  that  the  name  of  the  peafowl 
used  by  the  Greeks  came  with  the  bird  from 
India,  but  was  more  immediately  known  to 
them  under  the  Persian  form  tawus;  and  this 
form  appears  to  have  found  lodgment  in 
Greece  alone,  where  it  appears  as  taos,  geni- 
tive taon.    That  means  that  the   Greeks  did 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

not  carry  the  bird  on,  but  the  PhcEnicians 
did;  for  the  rest  of  Europe  gave  it  names 
that  are  similar  to  Esthonian  paiva  and  paew, 
the  sun,  the  day.  Such  are  Latin  pavo, 
pavonis,  Irish  payal,  Vendish  pawol,  Esthonian 
pabu-lind,  German  Pfau.  It  became  the  bird 
of  the  healing  god  Paian,  whose  ancient  half- 
forgotten  name  the  worshippers  of  Apollo 
called  upon  when  they  cried  "  lo  Paian  !  "  It 
is  the  Greek  bird  god  phaon,  the  shiner,  and 
though  in  the  legend  of  the  bird  phoenix  we 
have  astronomical  ideas,  yet  is  the  creature  on 
which  the  phoenix  was  based  the  peacock  ! 
Our  word  "  pea  "  comes  down  through  Anglo- 
Saxon  pawa  from  some  original  sun  and  day 
term  like  the  Finnish  paivan-lintu  "  sun  bird  " 
and  Esthonian  pabu-lind  "  peacock."  But 
when  we  come  to  the  eagle,  we  shall  find  him 
the  earliest  phoenix  of  all. 

A  characteristic  of  the  peacock,  in  which  he 
differs  from  many  birds,  is  the  humming  noise 
he  makes  with  his  long  feathers  when  wooing 
134 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

his  mate.  This  may  have  been  the  starting- 
point  for  the  musical  traits  in  Pan,  Vaino,  Fion 
and  the  Fenians,  of  whom  the  latter  indulged 
in  a  very  odd  humming  sound  or  chant  called 
the  dordfhiann.  Concerning  Faunus  of  Italy 
we  know  very  little  indeed  ;  but  of  Pan  of 
Greece,  Vaino  of  Finland  and  Fion  of  Ireland 
we  know  that  they  were  unfortunate  in  love ; 
their  wives  or  chosen  ones  fled  from  them. 
Perhaps  we  find  the  root  of  this  in  the  be- 
havior of  the  peahen,  who  seems  not  only 
insensible  to  the  strutting,  the  solar  display, 
the  arch  of  plumes  and  low  humming  of  her 
pyrotechnical  lover,  but  positively  averse  to 
him.  At  least  she  pretends  to  disregard  his 
suit  and  constantly  makes  off,  leaving  her 
lord  and  master  apparently  appalled  at  her 
bad  taste  ! 

The  bird  of  Juno  seen  on  coins  of  Samos, 

where  it  is  depicted  standing  on  the  prow  of 

a  galley,  was  all  the  more  valued  because  it  was 

not  a  native  of  Europe  or  Asia ;  it  must  have 

135 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

been  reckoned  as  a  gift  for  princes  from  the 
grayest  dawn  of  history.  As  late  as  in  his 
day  the  Emperor  Adrian  presented  to  the 
Heraion  in  the  Corinthian  district  a  magnifi- 
cent peacock  in  honor  of  Hera.  It  was  of 
gold  and  jewels.  But  as  early  as  barter  ex- 
isted specimens  of  the  matchless  bird  must  occa- 
sionally have  been  brought  from  India  by  land 
and  by  water.  The  pristine  navigators  of  the 
Indian  Ocean,  the  Persian  Gulf  and  the  Red 
Sea,  whom  the  Greeks  named  Phoinikoi  and 
the  Latins  Punici,  must  have  brought,  as  well 
to  Europe  as  to  King  Solomon,  the  phaon  or 
phoenix  natural,  not  astronomical ;  and  we  may 
well  assume  that  they  brought  it  with  all  its 
religious  honors  thick  upon  it,  calling  it  the 
bird  of  their  own  high  god.  Otherwise  the 
old  peoples  of  Greece  and  Italy  would  hardly 
have  named  the  bird  after  their  own  great  god 
of  light  and  day. 

Doubtless    the    Phoenicians    merely    trans- 
mitted to  Europe  the  fame  that  the  bird  en- 
136 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

joyed  in  India  as  the  warner  against  tigers, 
foreteller  of  rain,  visible  emblem  with  its  radi- 
ate flaming  wing  coverts  and  its  dark -blue  neck 
of  the  rainbow  itself.  Associated  as  it  was 
with  the  close  of  the  hot  term  in  India  and  the 
coming  of  the  rain  and  the  cool  season,  doubt- 
less they  found  the  Paiones  of  the  JEge^n 
and  of  Thessaly,  worshippers  of  Paian,  and 
the  devotees  of  Faunus,  Vaino  and  Fion,  as 
well  as  the  Pelasgian  dwellers  on  the  islands  of 
Samos  and  Lesbos,  ready  to  name  it  after  one 
of  their  most  notable  gods,  ready  to  replace 
eagle  or  cuckoo  in  favor  of  the  beautiful  new- 
comer. 

In  Crete  there  was  localized  a  curious  story 
of  Katreus  (a  name  for  the  Indian  peacock) 
king  of  Crete.  His  son  Althamenes  (the 
healer  ?)  discovered  that  he  was  fated  to  slay 
his  father,  whereupon  he  fled  to  the  island  of 
Rhodes  and  built  a  temple  to  Zeus.  But  he 
could  not  escape  his  fate.  All  his  other  sons 
having  died,  Katreus  set  sail  for  Rhodes, 
137 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

landed,  was  attacked  as  an  enemy  and  slain  by 
his  son  before  explanations  could  be  made. 
Here  we  have  the  cuckoo  story  brought  into 
connection  with  the  peacock  under  a  name 
that  is  probably  not  Greek  at  all,  for  in  all 
likelihood  Katreus  is  not  a  Greek  name. 

How  readily  the  peacock  might  find  its  tri- 
umphant way  about  the  world  is  seen  in  the 
remains  of  a  tomb  of  a  Viking  leader  preserved 
at  Christiania.  The  galley  of  war  was  his 
coffin ;  his  armor  and  weapons  were  buried 
with  him.  And  among  his  belongings  one  sees, 
shining  still  bright  after  a  rest  of  eight  centuries, 
the  plumes  of  a  peacock  embedded  in  a  mass  of 
charred  stuff.  In  the  Middle  Ages  the  peacock, 
stuffed  and  brought  ceremoniously  to  table, 
was  a  feature  in  various  solemnities,  oaths 
being  taken  on  the  bird.  These  oaths,  these 
ceremonies,  can  have  been  no  other  thing  than 
survivals  from  the  past  when  the  bird  was  after 
a  fashion  worshipped,  if  not  as  a  bird,  then  as  a 
symbol, 

138 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

It  was  on  the  island  of  Samos  that  the  pea- 
cock became  later  specialized  as  the  bird  that 
drew  the  car  of  Hera  and  decorated  the  prows 
of  her  galleys.  It  was  Lesbos,  first  inhabited 
by  Pelasgians,  that  produced  one  of  the  seven 
wise  men  of  Greece,  also  two  of  her  greatest 
poets.  Alcaeus  the  poet  and  Sappho  the  poet- 
ess, who  gave  their  names  to  special  rhythms 
in  verse ;  Pittacus  the  wise,  whom  Alcaeus 
satirized  —  these  are  called  historical  persons. 
But  their  names  cast  a  suspicion  on  the  rest  of 
Greek  history.  Two  bear  the  names  of  birds. 
Alcaeus  is  the  halcyon,  the  kingfisher,  fabled 
to  cause  the  winds  to  cease  until  its  eggs  are 
hatched  in  its  floating  nest ;  Pittacus  is  psitta- 
cus  the  parrot.  Pythagoras,  the  mystic,  far- 
travelled  philosopher,  was  born  in  Samos,  and 
though  no  well-defined  bird  traits  are  recorded 
of  him,  he  seems  to  have  flitted  bird-like  about 
the  world  —  India,  Crotona,  Sicily  —  and  cer- 
tainly had  the  attributes  of  Vaino.  He  pre- 
dicted storms  and  earthquakes,  tamed  with  one 
139 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

magic  word  the  Daunian  bear,  taught  the  trans- 
migration of  souls,  was  said  to  have  learned  his 
philosophy  in  "  Scythia."  And  whatever  may 
lurk  beneath  the  great  name  Sappho  —  perhaps 
Shamas,  the  sun  god,  perhaps  also  the  Sampo 
of  the  Kalevala  —  it  is  a  name  associated  with 
that  of  Phaon,  the  peacock. 

Phaon,  it  will  be  recalled,  was  a  favorite  of 
Aphrodite.  She  presented  him  with  an  oint- 
ment, by  applying  which  to  his  person  he 
became  the  most  beautiful  of  living  men. 
Sappho  had  a  hopeless  passion  for  him  and 
threw  herself  from  the  Leucadian  Rock  into 
the  sea,  where  Aphrodite  was  said  to  have 
drowned  herself  for  Adonis.  The  connection 
of  birds  with  Phaon  and  with  the  Leucadian 
Rock  is  dimly  felt  through  the  story  Strabo 
tells  of  criminals  being  thrown  from  this  rock 
as  a  punishment.  Their  friends  were  allowed 
to  attach  birds  to  them,  and  if,  thus  buoyed 
up  in  the  air,  they  reached  the  water  alive, 
they  were  picked  up  by  boats  in  waiting  and 
140 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

allowed  to  depart  into  exile.  Here  we  seem 
to  have  a  human  sacrifice  to  a  bird  god  analo- 
gous to  Pan  (Phaon)  for  whose  sake  Sappho 
herself  was  said  to  have  taken  the  fatal  leap. 

Pan  is  indeed  a  mysterious  and  little-under- 
stood deity.  Were  we  to  take  only  what  the 
Greeks  have  vouchsafed 
to  say  of  him,  we  would 
not  learn  much.  But 
with  the  clew  of  bird 
traits  and  bird  origins  in 
our  hand,  we  can  find  Pan 
under  many  disguises. 
The  Greeks  degraded  him  ;  or  perhaps  it  were 
truer  to  say  that  they  exalted  other  gods,  their 
own  special  gods,  above  him.  Thus  in  the 
career  of  Apollo  we  find  fragments  of  the 
career  of  Pan ;  because,  as  we  have  seen,, 
Apollo  ousted  Pan  and  absorbed  many  of  his 
attributes,  such  as  mastery  in  song,  divination, 
bowmanship,  eloquence  —  even  Pan's  hard 
luck  in  love. 

141 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

But  we  find  Pan  more  clearly  in  a  reputed 
son  of  Apollo,  the  sweet  singer  Orpheus.  If 
we  want  to  make  a  reasonable  guess  at  the  god- 
lore  taught  to  the  intrusive  Greeks  by  the  sub- 
ject Paiones,  let  us  look  at  the  doings  and 
beings  of  Orpheus.  And  then  we  find  a  bright 
side-light  thrown  by  Vaino  of  the  Finns,  whose 
exploits  were,  in  many  ways,  singularly  like  his. 
Vaino  and  Orpheus  had  the  same  mysterious 
birth  ;  both  were  teachers  of  the  people  and 
founders  of  states.  Both  were  charmers  of 
men  and  maids  with  music  and  song,  nay,  the 
birds  and  beasts  and  inanimate  objects  — 

All  the  beasts  that  haunt  the  woodland 
Fall  upon  their  knees  and  wonder 
At  the  playing  of  the  minstrel. 
At  his  miracles  of  concord. 
All  the  songsters  of  the  forests 
Perch  upon  the  trembling  branches. 
Singing  to  the  wondrous  playing 
Of  the  harp  of  Wainamoinen. 
All  the  dwellers  of  the  waters 
Leave  their  beds  and  caves  and  grottoes, 
142 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

Swim  against  the  shore  and  listen 
To  the  playing  of  the  minstrel. 
To  the  harp  of  Wainamoinen. 
All  the  little  things  in  nature 
Come  and  listen  to  the  music. 
To  the  notes  of  the  enchanter. 
To  the  songs  of  the  magician. 
To  the  harp  of  Wainamoinen. 

(Kalevala,  Rune  XLIV,  Crawford's  translation.) 

The  adventures  of  Vaino,  Ilmarinen  and 
Lemminkainen  while  bringing  back  the  Sampo 
from  Pohjola  have  dim  resemblance  to  those 
of  Jason,  Orpheus  and  the  other  heroes  on 
their  trip  to  Colchis  :  notably  the  attack  on  the 
Finnish  heroes  by  Louhi  in  the  shape  of  an 
eagle  bearing  armed  men  resembles  the  attack 
of  the  Stymphalian  birds  on  the  Greek  heroes. 

But  we  must  beware  of  supposing  that  a 
Greek  poem  like  the  Argonautica  of  Apollonius 
of  Rhodes  was  imitated  in  the  north.  The 
differences  are  too  great.  Each  appears  to 
have  grown  spontaneously ;  only  a  very  remote 
common  origin  can  be  imagined  for  both. 
M3 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Euro 


pe 


These  parallels  do  not  suggest  the  derivation 
of  one  god  from  the  other,  nor  of  one  legend 
from  the  other,  but  a  provenance  from  some 
early  universal  stock.  Vaino  and  Orpheus 
visit  the  under-world,  Vaino  to  obtain  three 
words  of  magic  in  the  belly  of  Antero  Vipunen 
wherewith  to  build  a  boat  —  the  Finnish  Argo 
perhaps.  Orpheus  made  his  ever-memorable 
trip  to  hell  to  regain  his  wife,  as  Vaino  and 
Ilmarinen  go  to  the  shadow  land  to  obtain 
spouses.  Like  Vaino,  Orpheus  was  soothsayer, 
enchanter,  instructor  of  his  people,  inventor  of 
the  lyre ;  and  his  name  seems  to  come  from  the 
notion  of  the  father-and-motherless  one,  the 
"  orphan,"  in  which  respect  he  resembled  not 
Vaino  alone,  but  Arthur,  but  Kullervo  and 
Kalevipoeg,  Merlin  the  old  Briton,  Fion  and 
Cuchullaind  of  the  Irish. 

Vaino's  intended  wife  went  off  with  Ilma- 
rinen ;  the  wife  of  Orpheus  was  pursued  by 
Aristaeus,  another  son  of  Apollo,  until  she 
found  refuge  in  Hades,  under  which  form  of 
144 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

the  legend  we  see  clearly  enough  the  ill-luck 
with  women  that  followed  Vaino  and  Fion 
and  Pan.  No  doubt  in  the  earlier  legends 
she  fled  wittingly.  Even  in  that  which  we 
have  Orpheus  completes  his  bad  luck  by 
looking  back  and  breaking  the  charm,  where- 
upon Eurydike  flees  down  again  into  hell, 
from  which  it  may  be  she  came  with  reluc- 
tance. Orpheus  comes  to  his  death  through 
women  who  tear  him  to  pieces,  while  Pan, 
constantly  teased  and  tormented  by  nymphs, 
was  bewailed  as  dead ;  while  Fion  of  Ireland 
is  forced  to  see  Grainne  his  sun-maiden  elope 
with  Diarmuid  the  irresistible.  Pan  and  Vaino 
have  also  more  serious  adventures  with  wo- 
men, as  we  have  seen. 

Pan's  bird  of  grandeur  was  the  eagle,  but 
that  was  so  long  ago  that  the  earliest  Euro- 
peans must  have  been  at  the  time  in  the  same 
stage  of  culture  as  American  Indians.  On  the 
west  coast  of  America  there  is  a  belief  in  the 
Eagle  of  the  Zenith,  a  gigantic  bird  too  high 
»°  145 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

up  in  the  air  to  be  visible,  which  yet  perceives 
all  that  exists  and  moves  on  earth  and  some- 
times descends  in  some  awful  visitation  of 
nature.  When  he  shakes  his  feathers,  thunder 
rolls,  hail  and  snow  fall.  The  phoenix  and  the 
peacock,  for  they  are  one  and  the  same  bird, 
were  used  by  the  very  early  Christians  to  sym- 
bolize the  resurrection  from  the  dead.  But  the 
Christians  of  the  Middle  Ages  did  not  copy 
them,  for  they  found  a  chance  to  moralize 
about  the  bird  and  class  it  among  the  suspi- 
cious adjuncts  of  heathen  gods. 

Perhaps  with  the  relegation  of  Pan  to  the 
devils  by  the  Christians  the  peacock  became 
that  synonym  for  the  lusts  of  the  flesh  which 
we  find  it  in  the  Middle  Ages.  That  must  also 
account  for  the  idea  that  peacock  feathers  are 
unlucky ;  they  were  badges  of  the  heathen 
when  Christianity  was  still  fighting  for  its  life 
in  northern  Europe.  The  writer  of  Job  seems 
to  have  no  such  prejudice  against  the  bird,  for 
God  says  scornfully  to  Job:  "Gavest  thou  the 
146 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

goodly  wings  unto  the  peacock,  or  wings  and 
feathers  unto  the  ostrich  ? "  and  proceeds  to 
score  the  foolishness  of  the  ostrich,  but  has  no 
word  to  say  against  the  peacock.  It  remained 
for  the  Middle  Ages  to  cast  odiousness  upon 
this  magnificent  creature  and  to  exalt  into  a 
favorite  charge  of  coats  of  arms  the  "  Pelican 
in  its  piety  "  —  as  ugly  and  stupid  a  bird  as 
one  can  find  on  the  Nile.  Yet  those  men  of 
the  Middle  Ages  who  did  not  moralize  es- 
teemed the  peacock  scarcely  less,  since  we 
know  that  knights  and  esquires  took  an  oath 
on  the  king's  peacock,  which  was  called  the 
voeu  du  paon. 

In  these  considerations  of  ancient  bird  gods 
in  Europe  I  do  not  wish  to  be  understood  to 
confine  the  men  and  demigods  noted  to  an 
exclusively  bird  origin.  I  wish  to  call  atten- 
tion to  a  neglected  field  of  mythology  and  folk- 
lore, by  studying  which  very  many  anecdotes 
and  actions,  which  otherwise  must  seem  quite 
arbitrary,  if  not   foolish,  take  their  places  in 

147 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Euro 


pe 


rational  sequence.  I  am  trying  to  show  the 
singular  power  of  the  imagination  in  taking 
some  one  striking  fact,  like  the  drumming  of 
the  woodpecker,  the  fosterage  among  cuckoos, 
the  radiance  of  the  peacock,  and  evolving  from 
that  simple  cell  the  marvellously  varied  struc- 
tures of  mythology  and  fairy-tale,  folk-lore, 
epic  and  drama,  to  delight,  startle,  instruct  and 
awe  the  successive  generations  of  men. 


148 


'lis  nothing  but  a  little  downy  OwV 

CHAPTER   VI 

IT  was  near  midnight ;  the  moon  had  laid  the 
Colosseum  with  broad  sheets  of  white  on 
dark  as  I  stood  in  the  ancient  arena  and  pon- 
dered — how  to  be  rid  of  a  small  Italian,  a  self- 
imposed  guide,  who  was  keeping  up  a  chatter 
in  German,  French,  English  and  Italian,  each 
bad  of  its  kind  and  all  impartially  mixed. 

Then  up  in  the  arches  against  the  sky  re- 
sounded a  strange,  not  altogether  unfamiliar 
sound  —  a  screaming  call  that  suggested  the  cry 
of  the  whippoorwill. 

149 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

"  I  care  nothing  for  the  Colosseum  and  its 
history,  my  small  friend,"  said  I,  "  but  much 
for  that  creature  screaming  up  there !  What 
is  it?" 

"  O  —  that  ?  That  is  only  a  bruto  uccello, 
cattivo  !  an  ugly  bad  bird  that  comes  to  people 
when  they  are  sick  and  tells  them  they  must 
die!" 

Passing  through  the  streets  of  Rome  next 
day  I  came  upon  a  seller  of  owls  —  poor  little 
fellows  fastened  securely  to  the  top  of  a  pole  by 
one  foot.  Every  now  and  then  one  would  fall 
from  the  top  and  flutter  helplessly,  hanging  by 
the  leg.  In  such  guise  they  are  in  demand  as 
lures  for  small  birds,  which  hate  them  so  bit- 
terly that  as  soon  as  they  catch  sight  of  them 
they  are  readily  inveigled  into  traps  or  on  to 
limed  twigs.  Otherwise  owls  are  kept  like 
cats  or  tortoises  to  free  gardens  from  small 
vermin. 

The  owl  as  an  evil  omen  and  the  owl  as 
a  lure,  these  are  the  two  phases  under  which  a 
150 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

harmless  and  most  useful  little  bird  is  known 
to  most  people,  not  only  in  Europe,  but  in 
Asia  and  America.  Its  broad  eyes  that  seem 
at  night  to  shine  with  an  inner  light,  its  big 
head  and  high  forehead,  its  mysterious  feather- 
light  flight  and  the  disconcerting  harshness  of 
its  cry  have  always  given  it  an  uncanny  repute. 
Why  has  the  witch  always  been  more  feared 
than  the  wizard,  at  least  in  historical  times  ? 
For  some  reason  the  small  owl  has  generally 
been  connected  with  the  female  sex.  Not  only 
was  it  the  bird  of  the  Maiden  Maid,  patroness 
of  spinning,  embroidery  and  the  olive-orchard 
among  the  greatest  of  mankind,  the  classic 
Athenians,  but  it  is  still  the  woman's  bird 
among  the  lowest  of  races,  the  blacks  of  Aus- 
tralia. Many  of  these  tribes  use  "  owl "  as  a 
synonym  for  "  woman  "  and  believe  that  when 
an  owl  is  killed  some  woman's  death  is  sure  to 
follow.  The  women  on  the  other  hand  call 
men  "  bats  " ;  the  death  of  a  bat,  so  they  be- 
lieve, portends  the  death  of  a  black  fellow. 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

The  small  owl  is  female  in  most  languages 
—  Sanskrit,  Greek,  Latin,  Lusatian-Vendish, 
German,  French,  Icelandic,  Welsh,  Hunga- 
rian. In  English,  Finnish  and  Esthcnian  the 
sex  is  not  distinguished;  but  I  think  that  we 
generally  consider  the  little  owl  feminine,  as  we 
do  the  cat,  although  Tennyson  and  Keats 
make  the  great  white  owl  masculine  — 

Alone  and  warming  his  five  wits. 
The  white  owl  in  the  belfiy  sits  — 
and 

The  owl  for  all  his  feathers  was  acold. 

This  bird  was  in  the  Bible  classed  amongst 
those  to  eat  which  was  "  abomination " ; 
though  why  the  owl,  the  cuckoo  and  the  swan 
should  have  been  placed  on  the  black  list  in 
Leviticus  has  not  been  explained,  nor  will  it 
seem  clear  unless  we  allow  for  the  connection 
of  each  of  these  birds  in  the  minds  of  the 
ancient  Hebrews  with  heathen  gods  who  ori- 
ginally were  bird  gods  and  dragged  their 
attendant  birds  after  them  into  "  abomination." 
152 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

Shakespeare  must  mean  the  owl  when  he 
says  in  his  mystical  Phoenix  and  Turtle : 

But  thou,  shrieking  harbinger. 
Foul  pre-curser  of  the  fiend. 
Augur  of  the  fever's  end. 
To  this  troop  come  thou  not  near ! 

And  before  him  Chaucer  remarked  of  the 
owl  that  "  wonde "  or  stayed  all  night  on  the 
"  balkes  "  or  beams  of  the  house,  that  it  was 
a  foreteller  of  woe  — 

The  owle  al  nyght  aboute  the  balkes  wonde. 
That  prophete  ys  of  woo  and  of  myschaunce. 

The  European  form  of  Christianity  has 
been  hard  on  birds,  harder  than  Judaism. 
Perhaps  it  is  for  that  reason  one  sees  so  much 
cruelty  exercised  toward  birds  in  Italy,  where 
at  the  hands  of  a  ruthless  race  of  men  Chris- 
tianity has  been  perverted  from  its  original 
beauty.  Like  other  heathen  peoples  the 
Etruscans  and  Romans  at  least  reverenced, 
at  least  feared  the  birds  whose  cries  and 
devious  flight  seemed  to  foretell  the  future. 
153 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

But  the  shocking  form  of  religion  evolved  by 
the  wickedness  of  the  Middle  Ages  allowed  the 
destruction  and  torture  of  hapless  birds  and 
beasts  without  remorse  and  with  scarcely  a 
rebuke. 

In  the  island  of  Lesbos  there  existed  a 
legend  like  that  of  Lot  and  his  daughters, 
come  down  to  us  through 
Greek  sources,  in  which 
the  fair  Nyctimene  did 
not  know,  when  the 
crime  occurred,  that  it 
was  her  father  Opopeus 
with  whom  she  sinned. 
On  learning  what  she  had  done,  she  fled  to  the 
woods,  where  Pallas  Athene  took  pity  on  her 
and  turned  her  into  an  owl.  In  Welsh  legend 
Blodeued  the  wife  of  Llew  is  turned  by 
Gwydion  into  an  owl,  because  she  betrayed 
her  husband  to  death.  Pallas  is  thoroughly 
mixed  up  with  this  bird,  as  we  shall  see ;  it 
was  no  mere  chance  that  gave  her  the  owl. 
154 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

Nyctimene  (nux  the  night)  evidently  means 
the  night  creature ;  her  father's  name  Opop- 
eus  is  plainly  that  of  the  hoopoe  (upupa) ; 
therefore  the  legend  itself  is  one  more  example 
of  bird  myth  humanized,  like  the  crimes  of 
heroes  and  heroines  already  traced  back  to  the 
natural  history  of  the  cuckoo. 

The  fact  that  the  owl  is  useful  to  husband- 
men in  ridding  the  grain  fields  of  mice,  which 
often  bring  famines  by  a  sudden  vast  increase 
in  their  numbers,  only  confirmed  the  owl  as 
a  symbol  of  the  Immortal  Maid.  These  little 
screech-owls  which  are  said  to  have  been 
always  common  about  the  acropolis  may  well 
have  protected  other  crops  from  mice  beside 
grain,  the  olive  for  instance,  a  branch  of  which 
accompanies  the  owl  on  Attic  coins.  In 
Germany  its  names  are  many :  Kauz  is  the 
commonest,  but  corpse-bird,  corpse-hen,  death- 
owl,  sorrowing  mother,  indicate  the  supersti- 
tions to  which  its  nocturnal  habits  and  startling 
cry  have  given  rise.     In    Austria  one  of  its 

155 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

names  is  Wichtl,  little  wight,  little  kobold, 
suggesting  a  certain  fondness  for  it  on  the 
part  of  the  people.  In  Germany  the  Eulen- 
flucht  in  barns  is  a  triangular  hole  left  in 
the  gable  to  permit  owls  to  enter  and  destroy 
mice. 

The  usefulness  of  the  small  hooter  must 
have  been  known  to  the  ancients  about  the 
Mediterranean ;  it  certainly  is  to  the  moderns. 
In  Austria,  Greece  and  Italy  it  is  commonly 
tamed  or  turned  loose  in  gardens  with  clipped 
wings  in  order  to  keep  down  insects,  slugs  and 
mice.  Small  birds  and  bats  are  its  prey ;  a 
singular  habit  of  bowing  and  swelling  up  its 
feathers  in  a  comical  fashion  makes  it  an 
amusing  pet.  The  lively  way  in  which  the 
owl  attacks  and  kills  birds  of  its  own  size 
must  have  aided  in  keeping  it  long  as  a 
symbol  of  the  warrior  goddess ;  for  many 
centuries  it  accompanied  her  head  on  Attic 
coins.  But  these  are  merely  minor  matters 
that  confirmed  its  popularity  in  despite  of  a 
iS6 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

sinister  repute.  More  important  was  its  posi- 
tion as  luctifer  "  sorrow-bringer."  As  a 
haunter  of  moonlight  and  dusk  it  held  its 
own  place  among  the  gods  and  half-gods  of 
earliest  Europe. 

Who  Pallas  Athene  herself  was,  is  one  of 
the  many  puzzles  of  Greek  mythology;  yet 
it  may  be  the  little  downy  owl  shall  offer  us 
a  clew. 

Just  why  Pallas  Athene  should  have  had 
the  owl  for  her  symbol  the  ancients  never 
satisfactorily  explained,  nor  have  the  moderns 
done  so.  Certainly  it  must  have  been  for 
reasons  more  cogent  than  the  fanciful  one  that 
the  owl  is  a  wise  bird  because  it  looks  so 
solemn  and  was  therefore  given  to  Pallas 
because  she  was  a  wise  goddess. 

The  owl  is  the  glaux,  glarer,  with  its  round 
yellow  eyes ;  Pallas  is  called  glaukopis,  glaux- 
eyed,  because  —  she  could  see  in  the  dark  like 
an  owl  to  carry  off  men's  souls  ! 

This  was  her  office  at  the  period  when  she 
157 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

was  the  bride  of  Vulcan  and  did  many  things 
her  worshippers  afterwards  suppressed.  Much 
later  must  have  been  the  epoch  when  the 
classical  Greeks,  who  hated  ugly  things  more 
than  bad  logic  and  inconsistency,  raised  her  to 
the  severe  beauty  and  serenity  of  the  chaste, 
warlike  goddess,  the  Brunhild  of  Greece  and 
at  the  same  time  the  goddess  of  the  spindle 
and  of  wisdom. 

Pallas  of  Athens  had  other  symbols  among 
living  things,  notably  the  serpent,  which  coils 
about  her  altar  in  Attika  as  it  does  in  an 
Etruscan  tomb-painting  about  the  altar  of 
Minerva.  Pausanias  suggests  that  this  ser- 
pent is  the  symbol  of  the  old  King  Erich- 
thonius  of  the  aborigines.  But  she  had  the 
cock  also,  as  one  perceives  from  many  a 
beautiful  old  Greek  vase  whereon  she  is  de- 
picted standing  in  her  stiffest  hieratic  attitude 
between  two  columns,  on  each  of  which  is  a 
game-cock.  This  is  pre-eminently  the  bird 
of  the  dawn  and  must  have  been  assigned 
158 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 


to  Pallas  as  soon  as  it  was  introduced  from 
the  Orient,  notwithstanding  its  masculine  sex; 
perhaps  because  at  that  early  period  the  Maid 
had  not  become  so  definitely  not-male  as  later 
on.  The  owl  is  not  only  the  bird  of  dusk, 
but  of  moonlight,  and 
as  it  is  a  European  fowl, 
not  an  importation,  like 
the  cock,  peacock  and 
pheasant,  must  be  held 
the  earlier  symbol  of 
the  two.  Some  early 
coins  of  Athens  show  a 
crescent  moon  along  with 
owl  and  olive  branch, 
others,  somewhat  later, 
three  or  four  crescents  with  or  without  the 
owl.  Since  such  symbols  are  generally  in 
the  nature  of  footnotes  explanatory  of  the 
meaning  of  a  god,  we  may  safely  consider 
that  Pallas  Athene  was  originally  a  deity  of 
the  night,  rather  than  the  day.  Since  owl 
159 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

and  serpent  infest  caves  of  the  rock,  we  may 
consider  her  allied  to  the  earth,  that  is  to  say, 
of  the  race  of  the  giants  and  of  the  powers 
of  darkness  under  the  earth.  We  have  seen 
in  the  last  chapter  how  the  Greeks  of  the 
time  of  Perikles  placed  the  woman-headed 
winged  lion  on  her  helmet  instead  of  the  owl. 
This  creature,  like  the  eagle-headed  lions  or 
griffons  on  the  sides  of  the  helmet,  are  sym- 
bols of  the  power  of  Athene. 

She  is  perhaps  a  form  of  Selene  the  moon 
(Diana)  and  is  own  sister  to  Aurora  the  dawn. 
She  and  Aurora  have  the  same  family  connec- 
tions. She  got  her  name  Pallas,  according  to 
Greek  tradition,  from  the  giant  Pallas,  grand- 
son of  heaven  and  earth,  cousin  to  Aurora. 
Another  version  of  him  is  humanized  into  a 
son  of  Pandion,  an  ancient  king  of  Arcadia, 
who  is  no  other  than  Pan,  the  great  primitive 
Turanian  god.  Pallas  Athene  is  therefore 
descended  from  Pan,  and  gets  her  epithet 
Paionia  from  the  older  form  of  Pan's  name, 
1 60 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

Paieon.  Another  epithet  is  Pandrosos  "  all- 
dew  "  indicating  once  more  a  dusk  and  moon 
divinity.  In  Italy  the  goddess  Minerva's 
name  is  explained  by  Isaac  Taylor  as  Etrus- 
can for  "  heavens-red."  She  and  Pallas  repre- 
sent a  being  like  the  daughter  of  Mana  in 
the  Kalevala  of  the  Finns  —  that  dread  spectre 
of  the  under- world — and  it  may  well  be  that 
the  "Men"  in  Menrfa  and  the  "Man"  in 
Manala  are  the  same  word. 

Our  goddess's  miraculous  birth  should  not 
be  forgot  when  we  try  to  find  her  original 
meaning  below  the  surface  of  her  worship  in 
classical  Greece.  Remembering  that  Pan  was 
before  Zeus,  not  as  the  goat-foot,  but  sovereign 
of  the  day,  the  sun  and  weather,  the  peculiar 
circumstances  of  the  birth  of  Pallas  Athene 
receive  explanation.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  she  sprang  fiill-armed  from  the  head  of 
her  sire.  So  does  the  dawn  rise  above  the 
head  of  the  sun,  spring  from  its  head,  as  it 
approaches  the  horizon ;  so  does  the  moon 
"  i6i 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

take  fire  from  —  as  it  were  spring  from  —  the 
head  of  the  sun  as  the  latter  sinks  to  rest. 
There  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  primitive 
peoples  imagined  one  office  of  the  moon  and 
the  dawn  to  be  the  purely  feminine  one  of 
bathing  and  refreshing  the  sun  during  the 
night  after  his  toilsome,  dusty  passage  across 
the  heavens,  sending  him  cleansed  and  bright 
next  morning  to  run  his  course  again. 

By  the  time  of  the  Homeric  poems  the 
names  of  gods  taken  from  peoples  not  origi- 
nally Greek  had  become  Greek  property  and 
stories  regarding  these  gods  had  branched  off 
into  a  hundred  different  versions  with  various 
godlike  persons  in  the  title  roll.  The  bards  had 
already  exercised  their  wits  in  explaining  the 
names  of  gods  and  heroes  from  Greek  roots, 
just  as  in  our  epoch  the  Irish  bards  explained 
non-Keltic  names  of  gods  and  heroes  through 
Keltic  roots.  Take  Ulysses  for  an  example. 
The  Greeks  called  him  Odusseus,  explaining 
the  name  as  the  "  hated "  one.  But  the 
162 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

Etruscans  with  Uluxe  and  the  Sikulians  with 
Oulixes  retained  the  earlier  pronunciation. 
We  have  seen  that  JEnca.s  the  dove  hero  was 
the  son  of  Aphrodite  and  took  his  name  from 
oinas,  dove.  Throughout  his  life  Ulysses  was 
the  pampered  favorite  of  Pallas  Athene  the 
owl  goddess ;  in  his  name  Oulixes,  Uluxe  we 
find  the  ululation  of  the  owl ! 

This  explanation  of  Ulysses  will  not  seem  so 
hazardous  if  one  take  the  trouble  to  recall  his 
relations  with  bird  gods  and  remember  certain 
main  lines  in  his  life.  His  adventure  in  steal- 
ing the  Palladium  from  Troy  was  a  night 
affair ;  so  was  his  expedition  from  JEsca.  to 
Hades  a  night  expedition  ;  and  as  an  owl  god 
his  visit  to  the  infernal  regions  was  in 
character.  The  slaughter  of  the  suitors  of 
Penelope  was  like  the  vengeance  the  owl 
takes  on  the  birds  its  mockers  when  even- 
ing comes ;  and  indeed  Pallas  Athene  is  with 
him  at  the  time  in  the  shape  of  a  bird. 
He  visits  Kirke,  the  poisonmixer  and  witch 
163 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

of  lExR.  Kirke  means  "  she-hawk "  ;  she 
was  the  daughter  of  King  ^etes  (eagle)  of 
Colchis.  The  universal  cuckoo  myth  then 
returns.  After  he  leaves  Kirke,  she  bears 
his  son  Telegonos  ("born-afar-off ")  who  when 
grown  up  lands  on  Ithaka  in  search  of  his 
father  and  kills  him,  not  knowing  who  he  is. 

Penelope  the  weaver,  the  wife  of  owl-wise 
Ulysses,  is  of  bird  origin  too,  a  daughter  of 
Icarius,  in  whom  one  finds  the  wings  of  Icarus 
again,  and  first  cousin  to  Helen,  the  egg-born 
daughter  of  Leda  (swan)  and  of  her  mortal 
father  Tundareos,  the  woodpecker;  therefore 
first  cousin  likewise  to  Pollux,  whose  name,  as 
we  shall  see,  means  owl. 

And  speaking  of  weaving,  I  am  minded  of 
the  Meeonian  nymph  Arachne  who  contended 
with  Pallas  Athene  in  that  useful  art  and  was 
turned  by  her  into  arachne,  a  spider.  In  this 
legend  we  are  close  upon  the  explanation  of 
that  great  puzzle  for  archaeologists  on  which 
Max  MuUer,  d'Arviella  and  others  have 
164 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

written  so  learnedly,  not  to  speak  of  Ameri- 
cans like  Thomas  Wilson  ("  The  Swastika " : 
Smithsonian  Publications)  namely  the  fylfot 
or  swastika  or  cross  with  bent  ends.  This 
sign  refers  to  weaving  and  was  a  short-hand 
picture  of  the  spider  ! 

The  discovery  on  ancient  shell  ornaments 
from  the  American  mounds  of  carvings  of 
spiders  with  a  cross  on  their  backs  gives  the 
opening  link  in  the  chain.  Schliemann's  find 
of  innumerable  spinning  whorls  and  weights 
of  terra  cotta  and  stone  bearing  the  cross 
symbol  deep  down  in  the  strata  of  burned 
cities  at  Hissarlik  gives  another  link.  The 
beautiful  American  spiders  with  crosses  on 
their  backs,  the  European  and  Asian  cross- 
marked  spiders  and  the  form  of  the  central 
webs  of  spiders  all  the  world  over  give  yet 
another.  The  symbol  of  the  cross  has  not 
migrated  from  India,  as  Mr.  Wilson  suggests, 
because  the  prophetic  web-spinner  is  every- 
where.    Everywhere  men  have  observed  that 

.6s 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

the  spider  foretells  clear  weather  or  storm  by 
its  peculiar  ways  of  acting ;  nearly  everywhere 
it  is  a  symbol  of  luck.  Spiders  foretold  their 
fate  to  the  Thebans  when,  on  the  death  of 
Philip  of  Macedon,  they  dared  to  revolt 
against  Alexander  the  Great.  The  spider  can 
make  itself  invisible  by  rapidly  vibrating  its 
web.  Its  marvellous  ingenuity,  patience  and 
spirit ;  its  courage  and  powers  of  disappearance 
and  prophecy  marked  it  from  the  earliest  ages 
as  a  symbol.  Its  most  prominent  marking, 
the  cross,  must  have  become  at  remote  epochs 
a  sign  for  the  creature  and  for  its  wonderful 
trait,  spinning. 

The  shell  gorgets  in  American  mounds  were 
probably  useful  as  well  as  decorative.  Hence 
the  prevalence  of  the  cross  on  early  thread  bob- 
bins and  spindle  whorls  round  about  the  earth, 
also  on  embroideries,  woven  and  plaited  cups, 
dishes  and  baskets,  useful  objects  that  were 
copied  afterwards  in  pottery  or  stone,  which 
copies  have  come  down  to  us  in  the  lands 
i66 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

about  the  Mediterranean  as  well  as  in  the 
United  States,  while  the  woven  and  plaited 
originals  themselves  have  perished.  When 
found  on  the  breech  clouts  of  ancient  idols, 
or  the  arms  and  legs  of  rude  statues,  the 
swastika  has  generally  no  reference  to  the  god, 
but  refers  to  weaving  and  merely  represents  a 
decoration  on  the  clothing  of  these  figures. 
Later,  in  America  and  Europe,  it  became  a 
symbol  of  the  four  points  of  the  compass  and 
of  rain  and  perhaps,  still  later,  of  the  sun  in 
relation  to  the  weather,  not  the  sun  as  a  wheel 
or  a  chariot ;  for  the  symbol  of  the  spider's 
cross,  as  we  see  from  the  American  tribes  who 
knew  nothing  of  wheels  or  of  a  revolving  sun, 
must  antedate  by  many  ages  the  discovery  of 
the  wheel. 

But  from  this  digression  on  the  cross-marked 
spider  as  the  origin  of  the  fylfot  or  swastika 
let  us  return  to  our  owls. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  in  Rome  a  festival  for 
Minerva  that  lasted  five  days,  the  Minervalia, 
167 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

should  have  been  held  in  March  ;  it  is  then 
that  owls  most  cry  and  flit  about,  that  being  their 
pairing  season.  Naturally  people  who  watch 
the  sick  hear  the  owls  cry ;  moreover  the  sick 
die  oftenest  in  the  early  morning.  Hence  the 
cry  of  the  owl  became  closely  associated  with 
night  and  death  and  the  bird  attained  in  the 
most  remote  epochs  a  lugubrious  fame. 

In  the  Rigveda  the  pious  are  urged  to  send 
up  prayers  to  death  and  the  god  of  death  when 
they  hear  the  owl  call.  At  Rome  where  the 
auspex  had  a  most  elaborate  ritual  to  comply 
with  and  minute  rules  to  follow,  he  managed 
to  distinguish  no  less  than  nine  different  calls 
of  the  owl.  It  is  singular  that  the  super- 
stition which  still  ravages  nurseries  in  Europe 
and  America  regarding  cats,  namely,  that  cats 
suck  the  breath  of  babies  and  strangle  them, 
should  have  existed  in  Italy  with  regard  to 
the  owl.  Pliny  explains  the  name  of  the  "  in- 
fanda,  improba  strix"  by  the  verb  stringere, 
to  throttle,  because  the  evil  bird  throttles  babes 
1 68 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

in  the  cradle.  This  idea  persisting  in  the 
nursery  while  colleges  of  auspexes  were  suc- 
ceeded by  convents  of  Christian  priests  gives 
an  inkling  of  what  that  primitive  thought  may 
have  been  which  lies  at  the  origin  of  Pallas 
Athene  and  Minerva  ;  it  measures  the  strength 
of  superstitions  as  to  spiders,  owls  and  such 
small  fry  in  surviving  the  crash  of  empires 
and  the  downfall  of  vast  religious  systems. 
Who  would  have  thought 
that  Pallas  Athene,  the  wise 
and  helpful  virgin  goddess, 
could  have  been  evolved 
from  a  cruel  owl  god  of  in- 
determinate sex,  a  murderous  god,  to  whom 
the  slaughter  of  men  was  a  joy  ? 

Long  before  wisdom  was  associated  with  the 
deity  or  with  the  owl,  Pallas  Athene  must 
have  been  evolved  from  an  owl  into  a  soul 
guide,  into  a  kind  of  valkyr,  softly  flitting  on 
owlet's  wings  to  carry  off^  the  souls  of  brave 
men  to  the  shades.  At  Orte  in  Central  Italy 
169 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

was  found  a  small  bronze  Minerva  showing 
traces  of  wings  and  carrying  an  owl  on  her 
hand.  The  wings  show  that  to  the  Etruscans 
she  was  a  psychopompos,  a  soul  guide  ;  the 
owl  indicates  the  realm  of  darkness.  Did 
not  Ceres  turn  a  son  of  Styx  into  an  owl 
because  he  blabbed  the  secret  that  she 
had  eaten  seven  grains  of  a  pomegranate  in 
Hades  ?  In  the  Kalevala,  when  Vaino  goes 
to  hell  to  find  three  words  of  magic,  he  wisely 
declines  to  eat  or  drink  there,  and  thus  man- 
ages to  escape  the  conjurations  and  copper 
nets  of  Mana. 

At  Perugia  there  is  an  Etruscan  tomb,  on 
the  rear  wall  of  which  two  owls  and  a  serpent 
are  carved  in  relief  Owls  as  well  as  serpents 
are  cliff  and  cave  dwellers,  hermits  of  darkness, 
and  belong,  if  one  may  be  allowed  so  grim  a 
bull,  to  the  ordinary  livestock  of  the  realm  of 
death.  In  Florence  and  Rome  I  picked  up 
two  Etruscan  scarab-shaped  seals  bearing  the 
owl  goddess  —  all  owl  save  the  head,  which 
170 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

has  the  points  about  it  indicating  a  helmet. 
On  one  the  owl  goddess  stands  in  the  middle, 
full  front,  flanked  by  a  sphinx  and  a  bird- 
headed  quadruped,  both  in  profile  and  seated. 
This  trio  of  winged  gods  has  a  strong  hieratic 
look,  not  so  suggestive  of  Egypt  as  Assyria, 
like  other  Etruscan  works  of  art.  One  thinks 
of  the  bird-winged  angels  carrying  souls,  which 
are  found  on  the  famous  Harpy  Tomb  from 
Lycia  now  in  the  British  Museum.  According 
to  the  ancients  the  Etruscans  came  to  Italy 
from  that  part  of  the  world. 

Seals  like  these  were  in  common  use  to 
guard  coffers  and  rooms  from  being  opened, 
or  to  mark  an  animal  or  object  for  sacrifice,  to 
identify  objects  or  to  certify  ownership,  or 
else  they  were  used  as  signatures  in  the  way 
common  to  the  East ;  they  are  found  in  great 
numbers  in  old  Etruscan  strongholds  like 
Clusium.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that 
winged  figures  on  seals,  such  as  griffons,  bird- 
headed  human  figures,  human-headed  beasts 
171 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

and  birds  were  talismans  at  the  same  time. 
An  impression  placed  the  object  sealed  under 
the  protection  of  the  god  or  demon  repre- 
sented. The  owl  seals  tacitly  invoked  the 
wrath  of  the  moon  goddess  or  valkyr  on  a 
thief  bold  enough  to  break  them. 

The  owl  goddess  of  the  Mediterranean  had  a 
parallel  on  the  Baltic  in  comparatively  recent 
times.  Of  the  stone  idols  fashioned  by  the 
heathen  Lapps  some  centuries  ago  Niurenius 
has  stated  that  they  were  for  the  most  part  in 
the  shape  of  birds.  A  god  worshipped  in  Livo- 
nia is  said  to  have  flown  in  the  shape  of  an  owl 
to  the  island  of  Oesel  when  Christian  soldiers 
appeared  in  his  temple.  This  god  was  invoked 
by  those  going  into  battle.  In  1219  priests 
from  Germany  destroyed  this  temple  and  in 
1225  the  Esthonian  inhabitants  of  Oesel  are 
said  to  have  thrown  out  the  idol  at  command 
of  the  Christians.  The  name  of  the  god  was 
Tarapilla,  so  we  are  told,  but  that  name  is  the 
Finnish  word  tarhapollo,  which  means  the  owl. 
172 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

The  old  writer  Adam  of  Bremen  mentions  the 
worship  of  Tarapilla  by  the  Esthonians  and 
says  that  slaves  without  blemish  were  bought 
to  be  sacrificed  to  the  owl  god. 

In  this  connection  we  may  recall  what  a 
commentator  on  the  Iliad  states  about  the 
Palladium,  the  talisman  on  which  the  safety 
of  Troy  depended.  It  was  not  a  statue  of 
Pallas  Athene  herself,  but  a  small  wooden 
image  of  an  animal.  May  it  not  have  been 
such  a  bird  image,  or  more  definitely  such  an 
image  of  an  owl  as  the  Esthonians  worshipped 
on  the  Baltic  ?  It  would  not  be  in  the  least 
peculiar  if  Lapps,  Finns  and  Esths  had  pre- 
served until  recent  times  an  ancient,  rude 
worship  that  represents  the  beginnings  of  the 
worship  of  Pallas  Athene  in  Attika.  At  the 
period  in  question,  the  gods  could  not  yet 
have  been  organized  on  Olympus  and  Pan 
rather  than  Zeus  was  the  great  god  of  the 
sun  and  the  thunderbolt.  We  may  consider 
this  early  Pallas  a  cruel  god  whose  sex  was 
173 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

doubtful,  a  god  of  soldiers,  to  whom  captives 
and  slaves  were  immolated,  a  deity  of  rapine 
and  darkness  whose  visible  symbol  was  the 
owl. 

Concerning  this  god  on  the  Baltic  we  have 
a  peculiarly  rude  trait.  When  represented  as 
a  human  deity  he  carried  a  long  shaft  of  iron 
in  place  of  a  spear  and  was  said  to  have  heated 
one  end  of  it  red  hot  —  not  in  order  to  chas- 
tise men  at  all,  but  to  keep  the  lower  gods 
and  demons  in  order  !  One  thinks  of  Isvara, 
one  of  the  forms  of  Siva,  who  picked  up  a  red- 
hot  iron  his  enemies  the  Rishis  laid  in  his  way 
and  used  it  as  a  sword  or  club. 

One  thinks  of  Charon,  an  infernal  deity, 
beating  the  souls  with  his  oar,  or  else,  as  he 
is  depicted  on  Etruscan  coffins  and  ash-boxes, 
brandishing  with  a  frightful  scowl  an  axe  or 
hammer.  And  one  recalls  the  Japanese  de- 
mon queller  who  is  so  great  a  favorite  with  the 
painters  and  carvers  in  ivory.  Perhaps  it  was 
the  tyranny  exercised  by  owls  toward  other 
174 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 


birds  that  suggested  this  to  the  old  Finnic 
peoples  on  the  Baltic  when  they  invested  Tar- 
hapoUo  with  human  form  and  a  red-hot  spear. 

In  this  word  tarha  is  merely  an  explana- 
tory portion,  polio  alone 
meaning  owl.  It  has 
a  singular  likeness  to 
Pallas.  If  we  suppose 
that  the  Aryan  Greeks 
ended  by  assuming  va- 
rious deities  of  a  Tura- 
nian subject-race,  we  can 
easily  account  for  the 
true  meaning  of  Pallas 
in    harmony    with    her    attendant    bird. 

Remarkable  are  the  contrasts  in  the  char- 
acter of  Pallas  Athene.  We  can  explain  them 
only  by  supposing  a  blending  of  traits  from 
various  supernatural  beings,  just  as  we  find 
that  a  very  popular  saint  will  sometimes  absorb 
legends  and  miracles  originally  not  his,  but  the 
property  of  less  known  martyrs.  Why  should 
175 


f»^ 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Euro 


pe 


this  maid  of  Mars,  who  conquers  Mars,  this 
blue  stocking,  be  the  patroness  of  spinning  ? 

In  German  popular  songs  the  owl  is  often 
spoken  of  as  a  weaver,  perhaps  because  of  the 
odd  movement  of  its  head  when  disturbed. 

Recall  that  Minerva  was  originally  a  moon 
goddess  and  the  daughter  of  the  sun  ;  consider 
how  natural  a  simile  it  is  to  speak  of  the  sun 
or  moonbeams  as  "  weaving  "or  of  their  ap- 
pearance as  that  of  woven  cloth  of  silver  or 
gold.  Then  read  the  Kalevala,  where  the 
daughters  of  the  sun  and  moon  listen  to  Vaino, 
the  Turanian  parallel  of  Pan-Orpheus,  while 
he  entrances  the  whole  animate  and  super- 
natural world  with  his  minstrelsy  — 

In  their  hands  the  Moon's  fair  daughters 
Held  their  weaving-combs  of  silver. 
In  their  hands  the  Sun's  sweet  maidens 
Grasped  the  handles  of  their  distaffs. 
Weaving  with  their  golden  shuttles. 
Spinning  from  their  silver  spindles 
On  the  red  rims  of  the  cloudlets. 
On  the  bow  of  many  colors. 
176 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

As  they  hear  the  minstrel  playing. 
Hear  the  harp  of  Wainamoinen, 
Quick  they  drop  their  combs  of  silver. 
Drop  the  spindles  from  their  fingers 
And  the  golden  threads  are  broken. 
Broken  are  the  threads  of  silver. 

{Kalevala,  Rune  XLI,  Crawforcfs  translation.) 

Here  we  find  the  origin  of  Pallas  Athene's 
prowess  in  weaving.  And  while  we  note  that 
in  process  of  time  she  became  the  wisest  and 
most  sedate  of  goddesses,  her  earlier  career 
was  checkered  with  a  number  of  contests  with 
other  gods,  notably  with  Poseidon  for  the  pos- 
session of  Attika,  but  also  with  Ares,  Hera, 
Arachne  and  Aphrodite.  In  fact  she  was  even 
more  than  a  shrew ;  she  was  a  virago.  This 
suits  well  the  character  of  the  owl,  which  is 
forever  stirring  the  anger  of  other  birds  — 
forever  in  hot  water  —  and  yet,  by  observing 
a  reserved  and  prudent  conduct,  manages 
to  live  its  life  in  philosophic  repose.  The 
**  mother    of  ruins "   as   it   is  called  in    Syria 

seems  not  only  to  have  given  its  commonest 
f 

12  lyy 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

name  to  Ulysses  and  its  Turanian  name 
(polio)  to  Pallas  and  Pollux,  but  by  its  pecu- 
liar ways  to  have  done  much  to  suggest  the 
characteristics  of  that  great  goddess  —  a  singu- 
lar outcome,  indeed,  when  we  reflect  with 
Shelley  that  "'Tis  nothing  but  a  little  downy 
owl!" 


178 


1  Siveor  fey  the.Sw(m 


CHAPTER  VII 

IT  is  recorded  of  King  Edward  the  First  of 
England  that  on  a  certain  solemn  occasion 
in  the  year  1304,  his  investiture  as  a  knight, 
two  swans  decorated  with  gold  nets  were 
brought  in,  and  he  thereupon  swore  an  oath 
to  the  God  of  Heaven  on  these  swans.  The 
heathen  origin  of  this  oath  is  plain  enough; 
it  is  like  the  oath  on  the  king's  peacock  or 

179 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

on  the  horse's  head.  It  was  an  ancient  pagan 
oath  in  the  north  connected  with  the  worship 
of  Freyr.  But  at  first  blush  one  would  not 
suppose  that  a  bit  of  Yankee  speech,  found  in 
the  United  States  among  country  people,  re- 
ferred to  this  very  bird,  if  not  exactly  to  the 
same  oath. 

On  the  stage  or  in  the  funny  corner  of 
the  newspapers  the  ordinary  Yankee  from 
the  country  uses  an  oath  or  affirmation 
"  I  swan  ! "  or  "  I  swanny  !  "  or  "  Swan  toe 
man  ! "  This  is  called  by  the  dictionaries  an 
attempt  to  disguise  the  word  "  swear,"  as 
"  gosh  "  is  used  to  soften,  if  not  disguise,  the 
name  of  the  deity.  But  the  dictionaries  are 
at  fault.  "  I  swan  "  never  meant  exactly  "  I 
swear "  ;  nor  would  there  be  any  reason  in 
softening  swear  to  swan,  as  God  is  softened 
to  "gosh." 

Swan  is  just  the  bird ;  and  "  I  swan  "  or 
"it  swans  to  me"  meant  originally  that  the 
speaker   had   a    prophetic,   all-overish   feeling 

i8o 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

that  something  was  going  to  happen,  and  he 
used  the  term  by  which  he  knew  that  particu- 
lar fowl,  because  the  swan  has  from  time 
immemorial  been  a  bird  of  prophecy. 

The  same  order  of  ideas  regarding  the  swan 
has  enriched  the  German  language  with  an 
identical  expression :  Es  schwanet  mir  (it 
swans  to  me)  means  that  a  premonitory  or 
prophetic  shudder  is  felt,  such  as  is  expressed 
by  the  popular  exclamation  "  Somebody 's 
walking  over  my  grave  !  " 

Let  the  priest  in  surplice  white 
That  defunctive  music  can 
Be  the  death-divining  swan, 
Lest  the  requiem  kck  his  right. 

(Phcenix  and  Turtle.) 

In  1440  Frederick  II  of  Brandenburg  insti- 
tuted an  Order  of  the  Swan,  and  at  Cleves 
there  was  also  an  order  of  Knighthood  of  the 
Swan,  showing  that  swan  worship  lingered  in 
ceremonies  long  after  it  had  been  ousted  or 
covered  up  by  Christianity. 
181 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

Not  the  magnificence  of  the  swan  merely, 
but  this  element  of  superstitious  reverence 
accounts  for  the  frequency  of  the  swan  as  a 
crest  and  charge  of  coats  of  arms.  Perhaps 
the  eagle  alone  surpassed  the  swan  in  popu- 
larity for  this  purpose  during  the  later  Middle 
Ages  and  the  centuries  nearer  our  time,  when 
heraldry  began  to  affect  the  airs  of  an  exact 
science  and  most  well-to-do  people,  whatso- 
ever their  birth  and  descent,  thought  it  neces- 
sary to  set  up  a  coat  of  arms.  Thus  in 
heraldry  does  the  swan  run  back  through 
heraldic  devices  to  totemlsm.  Among  the 
"  oath  birds  "  which  the  wizards  of  Lapland 
called  upon  in  their  incantations  the  swan 
often  figured.  The  shaman  would  tell  how 
the  saivo-lodde,  or  bird  from  the  magic  place 
called  saivo,  carried  him  on  its  back  to  that 
realm  of  mystery  where  he  learned  what  is 
hidden  to  ordinary  mortals.  Hardly  less 
potent  than  the  eagle's  feather  was  the  feather 
of  a  swan  among  his  stock  of  talismans  and 
182 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

magical  paraphernalia.  In  all  the  northern 
and  western  part  of  Europe,  in  the  marshy, 
lake-strewn  lands  of  Scandinavia,  Russia  and 
Germany,  as  well  as  among  the  lake  regions 
of  Greece  and  Turkestan,  the  swan  was  a 
bird  to  conjure  with. 

The  large  white  swan,  domesticated  in  order 
to  grace  ornamental  waters,  is  very  nearly 
mute ;  but  the  somewhat  slenderer  whistling 
swan  (Cygnus  musicus)  sings  a  great  deal, 
and  indeed  is  particularly  loquacious  when 
wounded  or  dying.  Observations  of  the  mute 
swan  caused  people  to  assign  the  song  of  the 
dying  swan  to  the  most  fabulous  of  fables  ; 
but  modern  bird  lovers  have  heard  the  swans 
of  Russia  singing  their  own  dirge  in  the  north, 
when,  having  lingered  too  long  before  migra- 
tion, reduced  in  strength  by  lack  of  food  and 
frozen  fast  to  the  ice  where  they  have  rested 
overnight,  they  clang  their  lives  out,  even  as 
the  ancients  said.  Chaucer  in  "Anelyda  and 
Arcite"  had  good  reason  to  sing  — 
183 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

But  as  the  swan,  I  have  herd  seyd  ful  yore  — 
Ageyns  his  dethe  shall  singen  his  penaunce  —  So 
singe  I  here  the  destinye  or  chaunce  —  How  that 
Arcite,  etc. 

Musical  swans  used  to  come  in  such  flocks 
to  a  lake  near  Liban  that  it  was  called  the  lake 
of  complaining  —  Klagesee. 

In  England  the  musical  swan  seems  a  rare 
winter  visitant  now-a-days ;  it  is  supposed 
never  to  have  bred  there.  Special  provisions 
for  breeding  swans  seem  to  have  come  into 
England  with  the  Norman  kings,  who  may- 
have  inherited  their  reverence  for  the  bird 
from  the  habits  of  chiefs  and  magnates  in 
Denmark  and  Norway,  their  northern  ances- 
tors. It  was  not  by  chance  that  Edward  the 
First,  one  of  the  greatest  kings  after  the  Con- 
queror, swore  an  oath  on  the  swan.  Fattened 
roast  cygnet  (a  Norman  word)  is  still  eaten  in 
England.  By  the  time  of  Elizabeth  the  keep- 
ing of  swans  had  ceased  to  be  a  royal  preroga- 
tive and  to-day  the  largest  "  game  "  of  swans 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

is  the  property  of  Lord  Ilchester,  who  owns 
the  great  swannery  of  the  Fleet  on  the  coast 
of  Dorsetshire. 

Swans  were  at  one  time  considered  for  their 
useful  qualities  as  food,  but  it  is  doubtful  if 
birds  so  difficult  to  keep  in  domestication 
would  have  been  so  carefully  preserved  in  the 
various  royal  and  other  swanneries  of  England 
if  sentiment  and  superstition  had  not  worked 
hand  in  hand  for  their  preservation.  Among 
the  ancients  as  well  as  in  the  twelfth  century 
it  was  great  luck  to  meet  a  swan  at  sea.  While 
the  Scandinavian  tongues  have  the  word  swan 
it  is  curious  that  in  Icelandic  and  Old  Norse 
the  name  for  the  swan  in  common  use  is  and 
was  practically  identical  with  that  for  fairy. 
Icelandic  alptir,  Norse  elptr,  elftr,  swans,  is 
scarcely  to  be  distinguished  from  Icelandic 
alfar,  albr,  elves.  It  is  true  that  the  latter  is 
masculine,  while  the  word  for  swan  is  femi- 
nine ;  but  one  is  tempted  to  see  a  radical  con- 
nection of  thought  between  the  two. 
185 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

Legends  and  fairy  stories  abound,  in  which 
men  and  women  become  swans  for  longer  or 
shorter  periods.  They  are  either  permanently 
swans  or  can  change  themselves  for  a  time  into 
a  bird  that  is  at  home  in  the  water  and  the  air, 
a  bird  that  fears  neither  darkness,  nor  cold,  nor 
the  dizziest  heights  of  the  sky,  nor  the  depths 
of  the  sea ;  that  rejoices  in  snowy  tracts  of  ice 
and  rears  its  young,  like  the  halcyon  of  fable, 
on  masses  of  floating  reeds.  It  may  be  that 
the  great  river  Elbe  that  springs  from  the 
"  sea-coast "  of  Bohemia,  splits  the  realms  of 
Saxony  and  Prussia  in  two,  and  reaches  ocean 
in  the  ancient  free  commonwealth  of  Hamburg, 
was  first  named  from  the  magic  bird  whose 
name  was  the  same  as  elf  Elb  is  still  the 
word  for  a  fairy  in  German  to-day,  and  Elb 
or  Elbschwan  is  the  German  name  for  a 
variety  of  the  bird,  while  in  Northumberland 
elk,  Welsh  elyrch,  is  a  wild  swan. 

Indeed  it  might  be  well  to  give  up  the 
attempt  to  explain  the  name  of  the  river 
186 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

Elbe  from  the  Latin  word  albus,  white,  and 
seek  nearer  home  for  a  word  formerly  and  still 
used  in  northern  Germany. 

The  swan  is  the  sacred  bird  at  the  well  of 
Urda,  the  prophetess  in  the  Edda.  In  the 
Volundarquitha  three  magic  women,  seated  on 
the  shore  spinning  flax,  have  by  their  sides 
their  alptar-hamir  or  skins  of  swan  feathers. 
When  we  come  to  speak  of  the  Graiai,  these 
three  swan  women  will  emerge  in  quite  another 
land. 

Not  a  little  curious  is  it  that  certain  small 
rudely-cast  idols  found  during  the  last  cen- 
tury in  Mecklenburg  should  have  a  swan  or 
goose  on  their  heads.  They  were  said  to 
have  been  dug  up  on  the  site  of  a  famous 
Vendish  town  called  Rhetra,  which  in  the 
Middle  Ages  lay  on  several  hills  surrounded 
by  water  from  the  Baltic.  The  waters  have 
retired  since,  leaving  the  valleys  dry.  Here 
according  to  old  historians  was  a  temple  of 
the  Vends  in  a  grove ;  it  was  destroyed  by 
187 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

German  armies ;  and  these  remains  certainly 
show  the  action  of  fire.  Among  the  idols 
were  some  called  those  of  Radigast,  a  historic 
god  of  the  old  inhabitants  of  Mecklenburg, 
carrying  a  bull's  head  (still  the  badge  of 
Mecklenburg)  in  the  right  hand,  a  battle  axe 
in  the  left  and  a  swan  on  his  head.  In  this 
case  the  face  of  the  idol  is  not  human,  but  that 
of  a  dog,  bear  or  lion.  A  grille  ornamented 
with  the  figure  of  a  swan  was  found  in  the 
same  hoard ;  it  was  supposed  to  belong  to  the 
service  of  the  temple.  All  these  objects  were 
rudely  inscribed  with  names  of  gods  in  runic 
letters,  which  may  of  course  have  been  placed 
on  them  by  the  finders  in  order  to  enhance 
the  value  of  the  idols.  The  swan  or  goose, 
however,  would  very  well  suit  the  coarsely 
fashioned  idol  of  a  tribe  of  Vends  among  the 
lakes  and  watercourses  of  Mecklenburg,  since 
it  fits  exactly  the  accounts  we  have  of  other 
heathen  idols  about  the  Baltic,  such  as  the 
owl  gods  of  the   Livonians,  whose  last  resort 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

was   the    island    of  Oesel,   concerning    which 
mention  is  made  in  a  former  chapter. 

Looked  at  in  this  way,  it  is  not  so  strange 
that  swans  at  a  very  early  epoch  became  as- 
sociated with  the  night  and  moonlight,  a  con- 
nection which  was  self-evident  for  the  owl,  for 
instance,  but  not  so  readily  seen  to  apply  ta 
the  swan.  It  may  have  been  the  noise  that 
migrating  or  resting  swans  of  the  vocal  sort 
(Cygnus  musicus)  make  at  night ;  it  may  have 
been  the  splendor  of  the  swan's  plumage  on  a 
dark  sea  or  against  a  night  sky,  which  forced  a 
comparison  with  "  that  orbed  maiden,  with 
white  fire  laden,  whom  mortals  call  the  moon.'* 
And  when  we  consider  the  Baltic  and  the  swan, 
it  is  odd  that  the  Greek  and  Latin  names  for 
the  swan,  kuknos,  cygnus,  resemble  strongly 
Esthonian  kukene,  "little  moon,"  and  perhaps 
do  represent  some  very  ancient  reduplication 
of  kuu  ("  moon "  in  Finnish  and  Esthonian) 
which  was  used  by  the  original  inhabitants  of 
Greece  and  Italy.  Perhaps  this  is  the  same 
189 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

word  from  which  grew  the  Latin  name  for  the 
stork,  ciconia.  The  modern  terms  in  Estho- 
nian  for  swan  are  kuik  and  luig ;  in  Finnish 
luiko  and  joutsen ;  in  Koibal  and  Karagash, 
ku.  Those  parts  of  the  globe  which  the  musi- 
cal wild  swan  still  inhabits,  Lapland,  eastern 
Siberia,  Turkestan,  are  the  same  which  from 
primeval  times  have  been  the  home  of  the 
Finnic  nations.  In  central  Asia  the  swan  is 
still  so  sacred  a  bird  that  the  Tatar  who  obtains 
one  rides  with  it  to  the  nearest  yurt,  where  his 
neighbor  gives  him  a  horse  in  exchange  for  it ; 
the  neighbor  then  takes  the  swan  and  ex- 
changes it  for  the  horse  of  another,  and  so 
on,  until  the  poor  bird  is  in  such  bad  condi- 
tion that  no  one  is  willing  to  swap  a  horse  for 
it  more.  Perhaps  this  may  explain  the  use 
of  "  swan  "  in  an  Early  English  poem  quoted 
by  Halliwell  (here  modernized)  — 

Teach  it  forthwith  throughout  the  land 

One  to  the  other  that  this  book  have  now  **  swan  "  — 

that  is  to  say,  prophetic  power. 
190 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

The  prevalence  in  Europe  of  the  legends 
and  fairy-tales  just  mentioned,  in  which  chiefly 
figure  youths,  princesses  and  maidens  who 
turn  into  swans,  scarcely  requires  specification. 
They  are  found  in  the  Arabian  Nights  and  in 
Chinese  tales.  Usually  the  hero  of  the  Euro- 
pean tale  catches  the  swan  maidens  bathing 
in  the  same  way  as  his  Chinese  semblant,  and 
by  seizing  one  of  the  swanskin  cloaks  on  the 
shore  obtains  power  over  the  magic  woman. 
Also  he  is  incautious  enough  or  sly  enough  in 
later  years  to  show  his  wife  the  swanskin, 
whereupon  she  puts  it  on  and  flies  out  of  the 
window.  Another  German  expression  to  in- 
dicate uncanny  knowledge  is  :  Es  wachsen  mir 
Schwan-federn  "  swan's  feathers  are  growing 
on  me." 

The  Chinese  envoy  Li  Tung  Yuan  reported 
from  Lew  Choo  the  legend  of  a  swan  woman 
whom  a  peasant  found  bathing  in  his  well. 
He  seized  her  and  made  her  his  wife  for  ten 
years.  Similar  tales  in  Persian  legend  and 
191 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

Irish  fairy-lore  could  be  cited  if  we  had  the 
space,  and  since  the  goose  is  often  put  for  the 
swan,  it  may  be  that  our  phrase  "  I  feel  goose- 
flesh  "  may  hark  back  to  the  time  when  that 
shudder  of  awe  which  is  accompanied  by  what 
is  vulgarly  termed  goose-flesh  was  assigned  to 

the  presence  of  an  elfin 
being  in  the  shape  of 
a  bird.  Of  the  swan 
maiden  sort  in  popular 
thought  was  Berchta  or 
Bertha  of  the  big  feet, 
that  is,  of  the  swan's  or 
goose's  feet ;  for  she  is  pointed  out  in  various 
French  cathedrals  in  the  statue  of  a  woman 
who  ends  in  the  webbed  feet  of  a  water  fowl. 
She  is  la  reine  Pedauque,  the  mother  of  Charle- 
magne. She  and  all  swan  maidens,  it  is  well 
known,  are  in  fact  Valkyrs,  conductors  of  souls 
to  the  land  of  shades,  who  have  been  taken  out 
of  their  ordinary  rolls  and  given  a  fresh  lease 
of  life  as  the  wives  of  mortal  king,  prince  or 
192 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

lucky  peasant.  Such  is  the  beautiful  Suometar 
of  Finland,  of  whom  one  reads  in  the  Kantele- 
tar  or  collection  of  Finnish  poems.  She  was 
born  from  the  egg  of  a  goose  and  was  so  attrac- 
tive that  the  sun,  the  moon  and  the  northstar 
came  down  to  earth  to  woo  her  for  a  wife. 

Cygnus  the  swan  appears  in  Greek  myth- 
ology again  and  again,  oftenest  under  the  name 
of  some  ancient  king  named  Kuknos.  There 
was  the  son  of  Stheneleus,  a  great  musician 
among  the  "  Ligyes  "  far  beyond  the  Po,  in 
fact  on  the  Baltic,  who  mourned  himself  to 
death  over  the  fall  of  Phaeton  from  the  sky, 
whereupon  Apollo  turned  him  into  a  swan. 
The  fable  is  well  fitted  to  the  northern  land 
where  the  sun  disappears  for  months  and 
where  peoples  of  the  Finnic  race  live  who  call 
the  swan  luig. 

In  his  description  of  Attika  the  traveller 
Pausanias  has  preserved  the  following  testi- 
mony to  the  repute  of  the  swan  as  a  bird  of 
prophecy : 

«3  193 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

"  Not  far  from  the  Academe  is  a  monument 
of  Plato  to  whom  the  god  foretold  his  future 
greatness  in  philosophy.  He  did  it  thus  :  In 
the  night  before  Plato  was  to  become  the 
pupil  of  Sokrates,  the  latter  in  a  dream  saw 
a  swan  take  refuge  in  his  bosom.  Now  the 
swan  has  a  reputation  for  music,  because  a  man 
who  loved  music  very  much,  Kuknos,  the  king 
of  the  Ligyes  beyond  the  Eridanus,  is  said  to 
have  ruled  the  land  of  the  Kelts.  People 
relate  concerning  him  that  through  the  will 
of  Apollo  he  was  changed  after  his  death  into 
a  swan.  I  am  willing  to  believe  that  a  man 
who  loved  music  may  have  ruled  over  the 
Ligyes,  but  that  a  human  being  was  turned 
into  a  bird  is  a  thing  impossible  for  me  to 
believe." 

Then  there  was  Kuknos,  a  son  of  Mars 
or  Picus,  whom  Herakles  killed  in  his  father's 
presence.  When  attacked  by  Mars,  the  demi- 
god put  the  god  to  flight  by  a  spear-thrust 
through  the  thigh.  And  in  fact  the  swan  flies 
194 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

before  the  lance  of  the  sun  god  to  his  northern 
breeding  grounds.  A  third  Kuknos  was  a  son 
of  Neptune  and  an  invulnerable  hero  at  the 
siege  of  Troy.  He  was  choked  to  death  by 
Achilleus  —  a  swan  slain  by  an  eagle  !  True 
to  his  name,  Neptune  turned  him  into  a 
swan. 

This  particular  "  historic  "  Kuknos  betrays 
his  bird  origin  in  another  way.  Having  had 
a  son  and  daughter  by  a  former  wife,  after  her 
death  he  marries  Phylonome,  who  falls  in  love 
with  her  step-son  Tennes.  Anger  at  his  cool- 
ness and  fear  of  discovery  cause  her  to  slander 
her  step-son  to  his  father,  who  places  Tennes 
and  his  sister  Hemithea  (demi-goddess)  in  a 
chest,  which  floats  ashore  on  the  island 
Leukophrys.  Kuknos  learns  that  his  son  is 
safe  and  goes  to  Leukophrys  prepared  to  take 
him  to  his  heart  again,  but  the  son  rejects 
his  advances.  This  is  the  same  story  as  that 
of  Kupselos,  son  of  Eetion,  who  was  placed 
in  a  box  and  committed   like   Moses  to  the 

195 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

waters.  The  father  Eetion  is  plainly  Greek 
aietos,  eagle. 

Doubtless  these  legends  can  be  ultimately 
based  on  the  floating  nests  which  swans  some- 
times build,  and  on  the  fact  that  parent  birds 
and  their  young  will  have  nothing  to  do  with 
each  other  after  they  have  once  been  separated 
for  any  length  of  time. 

A  very  singular  trio  in  Greek  mythology 
is  that  of  the  Graiai,  called  the  Phorcydes 
because  they  were  the  daughters  of  Phorcus 
and  Keto.  They  were  hoary  or  gray  from 
their  birth,  like  the  cygnets  of  the  swan  ;  they 
had  swan  shapes,  but  only  one  eye  and  one 
tooth  among  them !  The  single  eye  may 
allude  to  a  habit  of  gregarious  creatures  of 
keeping  one  of  their  number  ever  on  the  alert 
like  a  vedette,  though  Schwartz  considers  it  the 
lightning  flash. 

Their  names  suggest  that  in  their  case  the 
idea  of  the  Valkyr  or  conductor  of  souls  from 
the  body  to  the  under-world  was  very  near 
196 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

the  surface.  They  are  the  guardians  of  the 
Gorgons  —  notwithstanding  their  single  eye  ! 
and  they  have  these  disquieting  names :  Peph- 
redo  "  horrifier,"  Enyo  "  shaker  "  and  Deino 
"  terrifier."  Thair  swan  nature  is  not  ex- 
pressed in  music,  as  in  the  case  of  Kuknos, 
nor  can  they  be  assigned  to  joyful  themes 
such  as  occupied  the  swan  formerly  on  the 
island  of  Rugen  in  the  Baltic.  There  the 
swan  had  the  task  that  is  elsewhere  now-a-days 
given  to  the  stork,  that  of  bringing  the  newly 
born  child  to  its  parents. 

Though  the  musical  swan  is  not  quite  so 
large  or  so  graceful  as  the  greater  swan,  it  has 
qualities  that  must  have  made  a  deep  impres- 
sion on  the  early  peoples  of  Europe,  Asia 
and  North  Africa  at  a  time  when  it  was  very 
common  because  difficult  to  shoot  with  arrows. 
In  fact  a  very  powerful  shaft  would  be  needed, 
were  it  not  to  rebound  from  the  strong  feathers 
of  the  bird.  The  Icelanders  likened  the  "  klee- 
klee "  and  "  ang "  tones  of  this  swan  to  the 
197 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

sounds  of  a  violin.  Pallas  the  ornithologist 
says  they  resemble  silver  bells  and  Olafsson 
says  that  in  the  long  Polar  night  it  is  delight- 
ful to  hear  a  flock  passing  overhead,  the 
mixture  of  sounds  resembling  trumpets  and 
violins.  Another  peculiarity  of  this  swan  that 
could  not  escape  observation  is  its  tyrannical 
nature ;  it  quarrels  and  fights  with  other  birds 
and  is  a  nuisance  when  kept  in  captivity,  if 
other  birds  are  present.  Moreover  it  is  a  very 
sly  bird  and  keeps  the  sharpest  watch  on  the 
hunter,  so  that  even  with  firearms  it  is  hard 
to  approach  within  killing  distance.  Its  ag- 
gressiveness toward  other  birds,  its  apparent 
wisdom  and  its  known  habit  of  flying  by 
night  make  it  the  natural  rival  of  the  owl  as 
a  symbol  of  moon  and  night  gods. 

The  gray  color  as  of  cygnets  and  the  swan 
shapes  of  the  Graiai,  as  well  as  their  terrifying 
names  and  service  as  watchmen  of  the  Gor- 
gons,  explain  very  well  an  allusion  to  the 
"  swan  of  hell "  in  the  Kalevala  in  the  episode 
198 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

of  Lemminkainen,  demanding  peremptorily  the 
daughter  of  Louhi  the  Hag  of  the  North  for 

his  wife : 

Louhi,  hostess  of  Pohjola, 
Made  this  answer  to  the  suitor  : 
"  I  will  only  give  my  daughter. 
Give  to  thee  my  fairest  virgin. 
Bride  of  thine  to  be  forever. 
When  for  me  the  swan  thou  killest 
In  the  river  of  Tuoni, 
Swimming  in  the  black  death-river. 
In  the  sacred  stream  and  whirlpool  ; 
Thou  canst  try  one  cross-bow  only. 
But  one  arrow  from  thy  quiver." 

It  is  Lemminkainen's  third  trial.  He  has 
caught  the  magic  machine  that  looks  like 
a  moose,  the  moose  of  Hiisi ;  he  has  bridled 
Hiisi's  flaming  horse  as  Jason  bridled  and 
drove  the  fire-breathing  oxen  of  JEttes  of 
Colchis ;  but  this  third  venture  fails  because 
he  is  shot  from  behind,  like  Balder  and 
Achilleus,  falls  into  the  coal-black  current  of 
the  stream  of  death  and  is  chopped  to  pieces, 
like  Osiris.  Singular  that  the  swan,  so  closely 
199 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

allied  in  the  primitive  religions  with  death  and 
the  dead-land,  should  under  Greek  influence 
rise  to  be  the  symbol  of  genial,  art-loving 
Apollo  and  rollicking  Bacchus ! 

Among  the  curious  statements  regarding 
Apollo  is  one  that  Alcaius, 
a  name  corrupted  from 
that  of  the  halcyon  bird, 
leads  Apollo  at  midsum- 
mer from  the  Hyperbo- 
reans (the  north)  and  that 
Apollo  is  drawn  along  by 
swans.  This  recalls  the 
swan-borne  knight  in  the 
story  of  the  Graal  which 
has  found  its  way  into 
modern  opera.  German  local  legends  retain 
the  idea  of  the  swan  as  an  uncanny  bird,  pro- 
phetic of  death  or  the  under-world. 

Thus  at  Heiligensee  (holy  lake)  a  peasant 
digging  in  his  garden  struck  an  iron  chain  that 
seemed  to  have  no  end.    Suddenly  a  black  swan 

200 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

rose  up  near  him  in  the  water.  In  his  fright 
he  dropped  the  chain,  when  swan  and  chain 
as  suddenly  vanished.  At  Kemnitz  in  the 
Mark  a  nightwatchman  averred  that  he  could 
always  tell  when  some  one  in  the  village  was 
about  to  die.  On  such  occasions,  just  before 
he  cried  midnight,  a  white  swan  came  up  out 
of  Plessow  lake  and  walked  to  the  churchyard. 
When  he  saw  it  he  did  not  dare  call  the  hour. 
Once  it  appeared,  went  to  the  churchyard, 
but  passed  on  to  the  residence  of  the  baron. 
He  ran  home,  roused  his  family  and  told  them 
of  the  portent.  Sure  enough,  within  the  week 
the  baron  died ! 

These  superstitions  belong  to  the  old  region 
where  Radigast  was  worshipped,  the  god  whose 
metal  effigies  found  on  the  site  of  Rhetra  bear 
the  swan  on  their  heads.  The  Valkyrs  lin- 
gered down  to  this  century  as  flying  women 
with  ice-cold  hands  who  plague  men  at  night 
and  ride  the  fattest  of  the  horses  on  farms 
until   they  lose  their  appetites   and  flesh.     A 

20I 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

man  once  caught  such  a  "  Walriderske "  in 
his  house  and  made  her  his  wife;  but  at  last 
he  showed  her  the  hole  through  which  she 
entered,  whereupon  she  flew  out  and  never 
came  again. 

The  swan  very  naturally  appears  in  Irish 
legends  and  especially  in  connection  with  the 
cuckoo  hero,  Cuchullaind.  Fand  and  Liban, 
wives  of  Mananan  of  the  sea,  appear  to  Cu- 
chullaind as  two  swans  linked  together  by  a 
chain  of  gold ;  when  he  strikes  them  with 
his  spear,  he  falls  into  that  state  of  emaciation 
and  frenzy  which  was  noted  in  the  chapter  on 
the  cuckoo.  In  another  version  he  falls  into 
this  condition  when  separated  from  Fand. 
Professor  Rhys  derives  Fand  from  the  same 
root  as  Latin  unda ;  she  is  the  primitive 
Undine  of  La  Motte  Fouque's  fairy-tale. 
On  another  adventure  Cuchullaind  finds  a 
princess  exposed  like  Andromeda  on  the  sea- 
shore as  tribute  to  the  fog  giants  or  pirates,  the 
Fomori.     He  kills    the  Fomori ;  the  rescued 

202 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

princess  and  her  maid-servant  follow  him  in 
the  shape  of  swans.  She  was  the  daughter  of 
the  King  of  Lochlan,  the  land  of  lakes,  vari- 
ously identified  as  Scotland  or  Norway,  but 
really  the  land  under  the  sea,  the  under- 
world. 

The  great  roll  played  by  birds  in  the  old 
Greek  myths  is  particularly  evident  in  the 
story  of  Leda,  the  mother  of  Pollux  (polio  the 
owl)  and  Helena  (selene  the  moon).  Leda  is 
the  same  as  Linda,  Esthonian  for  bird,  the 
mother  of  Kalevipoeg. 

Jupiter  approaching  Leda  in  the  form  of  a 
male  swan  rouses  disgust  or  laughter,  as  the 
case  may  be  ;  but  when  we  discover  that  such 
stories  are  the  natural  result  of  confusion  in 
the  Greek  mind,  owing  to  the  variety  of 
materials  and  forgotten  origin  of  the  myths, 
one  ceases  to  wonder.  Long  before  Christ 
the  ponderer  on  the  meaning  of  gods,  temple 
ceremonials,  legends  and  myths  was  the  vic- 
tim of  lack  of  records.     He  was  gazing  back 

203 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

through  a  perspective  that  changed  the  sim- 
plest things  into  the  most  complex.  A  rude 
nature  worship,  akin  to  an  Australian's  for  a 
bird  or  beast,  had  been  complicated  by  ex- 
plaining that  worship  as  one  of  heavenly  con- 
stellations, or  of  dawn,  or  of  thunder,  or  of 
night. 

Then  the  humanizing  tendency  set  in  and 
the  gods  of  the  sky  were  brought  down  to 
earth  and  mixed  up  with  earthly  men  whose 
deeds  historical  were  interpreted  partially  in  a 
superhuman  way.  So  it  came  about  that  a 
swan  myth  arose  in  which  Pan,  or  later,  Jupi- 
ter as  a  swan  demon  begat  on  Leda  a  swan- 
Valkyr  the  lady  moon  Selene 
or  Helena,  as  well  as  the  war- 
rior twins  Castor  and  Pollux, 
these  three  issuing  from  eggs 
like  the  Karakutengu  of  the 
Japanese.  That  this  is  the  probable  origin 
of  the  Leda  myth  appears  from  what  has  been 
in   the  present  century  learned  from  the  bal- 

204 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

lads  of  people  embraced  by  Greeks  and  Ro- 
mans under  the  general  title  of  "folk  beyond 
the  north  wind." 

In  the  Kalevipoeg  we  read  of  three  brothers 
of  the  north,  born  of  the  gods,  the  youngest 
of  whom,  Kalev,  was  carried  by  an  eagle  to 
Esthonia  and  there  founded  a  kingdom.  A 
widow  of  that  land  found  in  the  fields  a  pullet, 
the  egg  of  a  grouse  and  a  young  crow.  The 
pullet  she  placed  in  a  brood-basket  over  the 
egg.  One  day  she  found  that  pullet,  egg  and 
crow  had  turned  into  three  maidens  —  Salme, 
Linda  and  an  orphan  girl  or  drudge.  It  is 
Linda,  whose  name  means  "  bird  "  that  Kalev 
wins  for  his  bride. 

Sun,  moon,  ocean,  wind  and  riches  come  to 
woo  Linda,  but  Kalev  is  the  preferred  one. 
He  represents  the  eagle,  just  as,  though  for 
the  time  being  a  swan  in  the  story  of  Leda,, 
Zeus-Pan  is  oftener  represented  by  the  eagle. 
The  time  having  come  to  break  off  the  wed- 
ding festival  — 

205 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

Kalev  their  departure  hastened. 
Urging  Linda  to  departure. 
Grouse-child  her  good-bye  to  utter. 
His  fair  swan  to  stop  the  party. 

And  on  their  sleigh-ride  to  the  new  home  of 
the  bride  Kalev  remarks  — 

O  my  Linda,  O  my  darling, 
What  at  home  have  you  forgotten  ? 
Threefold  things  have  you  forgotten : 
First  the  Moon  before  your  dwelling 
And  he  is  your  ancient  Father  ; 
Next  the  Sun  before  the  bath  house 
And  he  is  your  ancient  Uncle  ; 
Then  the  birch -trees  at  your  window 
And  they  are  your  blossoming  brothers. 
Are  your  cousins  from  the  woodland « 

The  allusion  to  birches  refers  to  the  birch- 
grouse  from  whose  egg  Linda  was  born ;  the 
allusion  to  the  moon  as  her  father  refers  to 
her  poetical,  mythological  descent  from  a  moon 
god.  If  their  son  is  the  cuckoo,  Linda  may 
be    guessed   a   swan.      Now   with    Leda,   the 

206 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

mother  of  Castor,  Pollux  and  Helena,  the 
mixture  of  moon  and  bird  is  different  in 
arrangement,  but  the  analogy  is  clear  enough 
to  show  that  the  Finnish-Esthonian  and  the 
Greek  myths  sprang  from  some  original  root. 
Leda's  mortal  husband  is  a  bird  too  ;  Tunda- 
reos  (from  a  root  like  that  of  Latin  tundo,  to 
strike)  is  our  old  friend  Picus  the  woodpecker. 
Moreover  the  career  of  Castor  and  Pollux, 
the  Di-oscuri  or  darkness  gods  on  whom 
Greek  and  Roman  soldiers  called  in  battle, 
show  that  they  are  male  counterparts  of  the 
Valkyrs  or  female  conductors  of  the  souls  that 
perish  in  war,  true  sons  of  the  swan  and  moon 
goddess  Leda. 

Leukippos  (white  horse)  had  two  daughters, 
Phoebe  (brightness)  and  Ilaeira  (joyfulness), 
who  were  to  marry  Idas  (sight)  and  Lynceus 
(light)  the  sons  of  Aphareus  (aphar  swift). 
But  Castor  and  Pollux  came  to  the  wedding 
and  carried  off  the  brides  :  the  powers  of  night 
defeated  the  sons  of  day. 

207 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

In  the  minds  of  the  inhabitants  of  Greece 
and  Italy,  before  the  Greeks  and  Latins  held 
sway  a  connection  existed  between  the  swan 
and  wine.  We  see  that  by  the  frequency  of 
swans  on  early  jars  and  wine-cups.  On  what 
is  called  the  Anubis  vase  found  at  Clusium 
there  are  swans  behind  the  dog-headed  deity 
and  behind  the  bearded  god  with  wings  who 
stands  next  to  the  Gorgon.  The  handles  of 
bronze  wine-strainers  found  in  Etruscan  tombs 
often  end  in  a  swan's  neck  and  head.  In  the 
Etruscan  Museum  at  Florence  is  a  small 
bronze  group  of  a  young  man  on  whose 
shoulders  a  teasing  genius  has  alighted  with 
a  wine-cup  in  his  hand.  This  genius  of  wine 
wears  a  most  singular  tall  cap  which  is  nothing 
more  nor  less  than  the  neck  and  head  of  a 
swan.  Here  is  a  curious  problem  for  archae- 
ologist and  myth  interpreters. 

Dionysos  the  wine  god  is  by  some  myth- 
ologists  traced  to  a  night  god,  and  the  wild 
revel  of  his  train  by  night  with  torches  over 
208 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

hill  and  dale  compared  to  the  wild  hunts- 
man legends  of  the  north  of  Europe.  This 
may  be  the  point  of  contact  between  the  swan 
god  and  the  wine  god.  But  after  all  the 
relation  is  as  mysterious  as  that  between  the 
owl  and  the  opposite  to  drunkenness.  For 
it  appears  that  owls'  eggs  were  a  sure  cure  for 
that  vice  in  the  pharmacopoeia  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  The  owl  is  a  thing  of  fear;  and  fear 
sobers.  There  may  lie  the  connection  of 
ideas. 


14 


209 


Tbe  Bird  of  fire  v^^  Li?htniny-i^ 


CHAPTER   VIII 


RELENTLESS  is  the  destruction  of  our 
large  birds  of  prey  since  the  perfection 
of  firearms.  In  the  Eastern  and  Central  States 
of  America  the  eagle  has  become  so  rare  a  crea- 
ture that  he  is  often  mistaken  for  osprey  or 
great  hawk,  if  there  is  nothing  near  him  to 
show  his  greater  size. 

I   remember  a  perfect  day  off  Narragansett 
Pier,  the  ocean   dotted  with   graceful   yachts. 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

a  flotilla  of  huge  steamboats,  tugboats,  sailing 
craft  of  every  sort  assembled  at  the  starting- 
point  to  watch  a  race.  With  steady,  superb 
strokes  came  directly  from  the  sea  an  eagle. 
No  one  seemed  to  see  him  and  he  scorned  to 
notice  anything.  He  deigned  neither  to  swerve 
aside  nor  rise  far  above ;  but  steered  his  level 
way  straight  through  the  fleet  on  his  path 
toward  Conanicut  and  the  mountains  beyond. 
It  was  as  if  the  last  chief  of  the  Indians  of  New 
England  had  passed  into  that  dusky  brown 
form  and  refused,  even  as  a  spirit,  to  recognize 
the  pale-faces  whose  ancestors  did  his  race  to 
death  with  powder,  ball  and  poisoned  waters. 
Perhaps  he  too  has  fallen  ere  this  a  prey  to 
the  madness  for  slaughter  which  is  one  of  the 
charms  of  our  civilization  ! 

If  by  his  marvellous  flight,  audacity  and 
superb  aloofness  the  eagle  has  so  impressed  the 
modern  world  that  his  figure  is  the  badge 
chosen  for  five  of  the  greatest  nations  of  the 
earth  —  Russia,    Germany,    Austria,     France 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

and  the  United  States  —  one  may  guess  what 
early  men  thought  of  a  creature  that  was  so 
easily  the  king  of  birds.  It  was  enough  to  see 
a  bearded  eagle  beat  a  chamois  from  the  cliff 
in  order  to  feast  on  its  carcass,  or  the  golden 
eagle  rob  the  osprey  of  its  fish.  Who  has  ever 
seen  an  eagle  decrepit  with  old  age,  or  found 
an  eagle's  bones?  No  one.  Well,  then,  the 
story  must  be  true.  After  a  few  hundred  years 
spent  in  domineering  over  the  feathered  and 
furry  tribes,  the  eagle  merely  ascends  at  mid- 
day his  spiral  stair  of  air,  until  lost  in  the  efful- 
gence of  the  sun,  whence  he  plunges  down  to 
the  sea  a  rejuvenated  creature.  Like  Herakles 
he  enters  a  second  life  through  the  purifying 
effects  of  fire. 

That  is  why  in  the  Middle  Ages  the  Welsh 
bards  wrote  dialogues  between  the  eagle  and 
King  Arthur;  why  Charlemagne  had  above 
his  palace  at  Aachen  a  bronze  eagle  whose  beak 
was  turned  toward  the  nation  about  to  be  con- 
quered ;  why  an  eagle  was  pictured  as  one  of 

212 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

the  animal  guardians  of  Walhalla,  where  the 
gods  of  the  Norse  feasted  ;  why  the  symbols 
in  war  round  which  the  legions  of  Rome  rallied 
were  called  eagles,  as  a  generic  term,  just  as  we 
should  say  banners  or  flags. 

Eagles  not  only  renewed  their  own  life 
through  fire,  but  began  existence  with  a  fire  test ; 
for  the  young  eagle  which  could  not  look  the 
sun  in  the  eye  without  blinking  was  said  to  be 
killed  by  its  parents  as  a  creature  unfitted  for 
the  lofty  career  before  it.  Aetites  or  eagle 
stones  found  in  the  eyry  were  still  greatly 
prized  two  centuries  ago  for  a  variety  of  virtues. 
They  are  pebbles  or  roundish  stones  of  clay, 
rusty  with  oxide  of  iron,  having  loose  stones  or 
crystals  within  their  hollow  hearts,  and  they 
show  plainly  enough  the  action  of  fire.  We 
may  guess  the  eagle  was  thought  to  bring  these 
wonder  stones  down  from  the  sun  or  from  some 
volcano ;  at  any  rate  they  cured  diseases  of  the 
eyes,  aided  women  in  labor,  and,  oddly  enough, 
detected  thieves,  perhaps  because,  coming  from 

213 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

the  sun,  they  shared  the  sun's  power  to  reveal 
secrets  of  darkness.  The  eagle  was  said  to 
bring  them  to  his  nest  in  order  to  cause  the 
eggs  to  hatch  quickly  ;  another  proof  that  heat 
was  associated  with  the  stone. 

The  Simurg  of  Persia,  as  we  have  seen,  was 
a  god-like  bird  that  discussed  predestination 
with  King  Solomon,  as  the  Eagle  of  Gwernabwy 
held  dialogues  with  King  Arthur.  When 
Roodabeh  is  about  to  bear  Rustem,  this  bird 
is  called  in  by  Zal  and  helps  the  princess  — 
doubtless  by  bringing  her  an  aetite  stone. 
The  Simurg  was  a  prophet  of  the  good  or  bad 
to  come,  lived  for  fifteen  hundred  years  and 
revived  to  live  another  fifteen  centuries.  This 
poetic  form  of  the  eagle  lived  on  the  mountain 
Kaf  at  the  world's  edge.  He  appears  in  India 
as  the  garuda,  the  eternal  foe  of  the  naga  or 
serpent  nymphs,  whom  he  clutches  in  his  talons 
and  carries  off  to  his  eyry,  just  as  the  dark- 
colored  swamp  eagle  seizes  and  feeds  on  ser- 
pents.    His  connection  with  the  sun  is  plain 

214 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

enough ;  for  he  and  his  brother  Aruna  were 
born  of  an  egg,  like  Castor,  Pollux  and 
Helena;  but  Aruna  was  the  charioteer  of  the 
sun  god. 

It  has  already  been  noted  how  Kalev  the  god 
who  gave  his  name  to  the  land  of  Kalevala,  the 
reputed  father,  also,  of  the  cuckoo  hero  Kale- 
vipoeg,  came  on  the  eagle's  back  to  his  own 
land  and  married  Linda  the  swan.  Kalev  is 
the  eagle  himself,  but  in  the  Kalevala  the  more 
universal  god  Vaino  or  Pan  is  the  chief;  Kalev 
has  become  a  mysterious  giant  seen  in  sheet 
lightning  and  certain  constellations,  who  gives 
his  name  to  the  hero  land. 

Kalev  has  various  analogues  in  Greek  mytho- 
logy, iEetes  of  Colchis,  for  instance,  son  of  the 
sun  and  ocean,  who  robbed  the  golden  fleece 
and  was  robbed  of  it  in  turn  by  the  Argonauts. 
His  daughter  Medea  represents  Louhi  the 
Hag  of  Pohjola,  who  also  takes  on  eagle's 
shape  at  will,  while  Medea  used  a  chariot  drawn 
by  dragons.     The  characters  in  the  Argonaut 

215 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

story  and  the  Finnish  legend  of  the  robbing  of 
the  Sampo  do  not  exactly  fit,  but  the  two  myths 
are  sufficiently  close  to  prove  a  common  origin 
for  Sampo  and  golden  fleece.  Kaleva,  if  it  ever 
stood  for  eagle  in  a  Finnic  dialect,  has  disap- 
peared in  favor  of  kotkas  or  kokko.  Now 
Achilleus  seems  to  be  a  word  which  once  had 
the  eagle  or  dragon  meaning  in  Greek,  but 
through  dislike  to  the  use  of  a  god's  name 
gradually  fell  out  of  vogue  for  the  creature  it- 
self, just  as  Kaleva  disappeared  from  Finnic. 
In  the  chapter  on  the  cuckoo  we  have  seen 
how  grateful  the  eagle  was  to  Vaino,  that  Pan 
and  Orpheus  of  the  Finns,  because  when  Vaino 
cleared  the  land  of  woods  he  left  the  birch-tree 
standing  as  a  perch  and  nesting-place  for  birds  ; 
for  this  thoughtfulness  the  eagle  brings  fire 
down  from  heaven.  Throughout  the  Kale- 
vala  the  eagle  is  a  favorite  bird  simile.  Ilma- 
rinen  as  a  bridegroom  is  described  as  an  eagle 
which  has  broken  into  the  castle  of  young 
girls  and  seized  the  most   beautiful  of  ducks. 

216 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

When  he  is  asked  by  the  Hag  of  Pohjola  to 
fetch  from  the  river  of  Mana  the  giant  pike, 
before  he  can  have  her  daughter  for  a  wife, 
he  fashions  an  eagle  of  iron,  steel  and  flame, 
which  at  length  grapples  successfully  with  the 
pike  and  lands  it  from  the  river  of  death. 
When  he  and  Vaino  steal 
the  Sampo,  the  Hag  of 
Pohjola  transforms  her- 
self into  a  monster  eagle 
and  bears  armed  men  on 
her  back  over  the  sea  in 
pursuit  of  the  marauders. 
One  meets  the  eagle  at  every  twist  and  turn. 
When  Lemminkainen  fails  to  get  an  invita- 
tion to  the  wedding  of  Ilmarinen  and  resolves 
to  know  the  reason  why,  the  Hag  tries  to 
place  obstacles  in  his  way;  amongst  others  she 
causes  a  fiery  stream  to  appear  across  his  path 
with  a  fiery  eagle  that  threatens  to  swallow 
Lemminkainen.  After  he  has  reached  Poh- 
jola, defied  its  inhabitants  and  killed  the  son 

217 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

of  the  Hag  in  a  duel  with  swords,  he  flies 
home  in  the  shape  of  an  eagle  and  is  pursued 
by  a  hawk,  which  is  the  spirit  of  the  demon 
he  has  just  slain. 

The  kindred  epic  of  the  Esths,  the  Kalevi- 
poeg,  has  much  to  say  concerning  eagles. 
When  the  island  maid  learns  who  Kalevipoeg 
is,  she  drowns  herself;  her  parents  rake  the 
bed  of  the  sea  for  her,  but  bring  up  an  old  iron 
helmet  and  an  eagle's  egg.  The  island  mother 
places  this  egg  in  the  sun  by  day  and  warms  it 
in  her  bed  by  night,  until  the  young  eagle  is 
hatched,  grows  strong  and  escapes.  Later  she 
finds  it  again  —  but  a  little  man  is  lurking 
under  the  eagle's  wing,  a  dwarf  who  carries  a 
little  axe.  But  the  little  man  with  his  little 
axe  is  able  to  fell  the  enormous  tree  which 
shuts  out  the  sunlight  from  the  island  —  that 
is  to  say,  the  primeval  forest  of  Finland.  He 
is  in  fact  Sampsa  Pellerwoinen,  whom  we  find 
in  the  Kalevala  as  a  little  copper  man  doing 
the  same  miracle.     It  is  evident  that  he  is  a 

218 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

parable  for  fire,  which  men  used  to  carry  about 
in  a  copper  tinder-box ;  fire  that  like  the 
copper  dwarf  rises  to  a  giant  and  does  more 
than  giant's  work.  Fire  must  clear  away  the 
forests  before  civilization  can  establish  itself. 
So  here  again  we  have  the  eagle  and  fire 
brought  into  close  connection. 

The  great  age  ascribed  to  the  eagle  was 
known  to  the  Welsh ;  only  one  animal  out- 
ranked him,  namely,  the  salmon  of  Llyn 
Llyw.  The  Mabinogion  tales  place  after  this 
salmon  in  order  of  longevity  the  eagle  of 
Gwernabwy,  the  owl  of  Cwm  Cawlwyd,  the  stag 
of  Rhedynvre  and  the  black  bird  of  Kilgwri. 
And  Giraldus  has  preserved  for  us  the  dra- 
matic figure  of  the  Eagle  of  the  Eagle  Moun- 
tain (now  Snowdon)  prophetic  of  wars  "  who, 
perching  on  a  fatal  stone  every  fifth  holiday, 
in  order  to  satiate  her  hunger  with  the  car- 
casses of  the  slain,  is  said  to  expect  war  on  that 
same  day  and  to  have  almost  perforated  the 
stone  by  cleaning  and  sharpening  her  beak"  ! 

219 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

The  phoenix  was  a  symbol  of  the  sun  and 
there  needs  no  guess  to  identify  the  phoenix 
with  the  eagle,  especially  since  the  eagle  burns 

itself  into  youth  again 
by  contact  with  the  sun. 
Herodotus  tells  how  its 
picture,  which  he  saw  in 
Egypt,  had  feathers  of 
gold  and  red,  and  in 
outline  and  size  was  as 
nearly  as  possible  like 
an  eagle.  It  lives  five 
hundred  years,  when  its 
son  brings  its  body  from 
Arabia  to  the  temple  of  Helios  in  Sun-city  on 
the  Nile. 

Phoenix  the  fiery  red  was,  as  we  have  seen 
when  considering  the  peacock,  a  form  of  Pan, 
but  we  find  him  fully  humanized  as  Phoenix 
the  blind  king  whom  the  Argonauts  found  a 
prey  to  the  Harpies  ;  later  Cheiron  restored 
his  sight ;  it  was  he  according  to  Homer  who 


220 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

instructed  Achilleus  and  went  with  him  to 
Troy ;  after  the  death  of  that  hero  he  re- 
turned to  Greece  to  fetch  Pyrrhus  (the  fiery 
one)  the  son  of  Achilleus. 

This  heroic  descendant  of  a  primitive  eagle 
god,  who  all  through  the  Iliad  shows  his 
eagle  character  by  disputing  over  spoils,  has 
his  northern  namesake  in  Kalev,  the  giant 
founder  of  Finland  and  the  Esths.  Nay,  I 
make  bold  to  identify  the  name  of  Achilleus 
not  only  with  Kaleva  the  eagle  god  of  Finland, 
but  with  the  Latin  word  aquila,  eagle.  He 
was  the  son  of  Peleus  the  male  pigeon  (peleia) 
and  of  Thetis,  a  nymph  of  the  sea,  just  as 
^etes,  the  eagle  of  Colchis,  was  a  son  of  the 
sun  born  to  a  nymph  of  the  ocean.  All  the 
brothers  born  before  Achilleus  were  submitted 
to  the  fiery  test  of  the  young  eagle ;  they  were 
placed  by  Thetis  in  the  flames  to  burn  out 
their  mortal  parts ;  but  they  perished.  Achil- 
leus also  was  thrust  by  his  mother  into  the 
fire ;   but   his   father   pulled   him    out.      The 

221 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

great  hero  of  the  Iliad  thus  begins  life  like  a 
young  eagle  with  the  fire  test  and  ends  it  with 
a  fire  burial,  not,  it  is  true,  on  a  pyre  kindled 
by  his  own  hands,  as  Herakles  did  himself  to 
death,  but  one  raised  by  the  sorrowing  sur- 
vivors. The  idea  at  bottom  of  his  story  is 
that  if  he  had  endured  the  fire  test  at  birth, 
if  his  father  had  not  plucked  him  prematurely 
from  the  flames  in  which  his  mother  Thetis 
cast  him,  he  would  have  been  immortal  like 
the  eagle  or  phoenix,  needing  only  a  period- 
ical flame  bath  to  "renew  his  youth  like  the 
eagles." 

We  have  no  exact  idea  what  the  pre-Homeric 
Achilleus  was,  whose  name  and  part  of  whose 
traits  appear  in  the  hero  of  the  Trojan  war. 
But  we  are  not  left  in  the  dark  as  to  the  exist- 
ence of  earlier  beings  of  his  name  who  are  less 
realistic  and  human,  more  shadowy  and  super- 
natural. He  appears  as  a  son  of  Galatus  re- 
markable for  the  whiteness  of  his  hair,  as  if  in 
allusion  to  the  bald  or  white-headed  eagle.     In 

222 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

this  he  suggests  the  white-haired,  white-bearded 
Vainamoinen.  Again  there  was  an  Achilleus 
the  son  of  Zeus  and  Lamia,  so  beautiful  that 
Venus  became  frantic  with  jealousy.  Pan  was 
called  upon  to  judge  in  this  pre-Homeric 
beauty  contest  and  because  he  cast  his  vote  for 
Achilleus  the  angry  goddess  changed  Pan  to  a 
hideous  goat-footed  creature  and  made  him 
fall  in  love  with  Echo,  the  nymph  who  ever 
mocks  and  can  never  be  found.  There  was 
still  another  Achilleus  who  taught  the  Centaur 
Cheiron,  who  in  turn  was  the  teacher  of  the 
Homeric  Achilleus.  Finally  there  was  a  pris- 
tine Achilleus,  the  son  of  Earth,  a  primeval 
eagle  of  the  cloudy  firmament, 
to  whom  Hera  fled  when  Zeus 
pursued  her  in  the  shape  of  a 
cuckoo.  This  Achilleus  per- 
suaded Hera  not  to  fly  from 
Zeus,  who  caught  her  as  a  cuckoo  on  the 
Cuckoo  Mountain.  He  was  the  eagle  coun- 
sellor of  cuckoo  gods. 

223 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

In  his  "  Famous  Islands "  old  Tommaso 
Porcacchi  tells  of  the  island  of  Crete  that  there 
are  birds  on  it  called  caristi,  which  fly  through 
the  fire  without  being  at  all  harmed  —  senza 
punto  essere  oflFesi  volavano  sopra  la  fiamma 
del  fuoco.  Perhaps  it  is  a  reminiscence  of  the 
phoenix  that  belonged  especially  to  Arabia, 
Egypt  and  Palestine.  In  the  oldest  tombs 
discovered  lately  on  the  Upper  Nile  by  Jacques 
de  Morgan  and  others  the  phoenix  is  seen  ris- 
ing from  a  bed  of  flames  whiqn  may  well  mean 
the  funeral  pyre  of  the  defunct.  The  inscrip- 
tions in  question  are  so  early  that  they  belong 
to  the  period  when  the  ceremonial  of  the 
mummy  had  not  become  universal  in  Egypt 
and  the  conquerors  of  Egypt,  probably  a 
swarm  of  metal-using  foreigners  from  the  val- 
ley of  the  Euphrates  who  crossed  Arabia  and 
the  Red  Sea,  were  still  burning  the  bodies 
of  their  chiefs  and  kings.  The  phoenix  of 
these  inscriptions  may  indicate  the  soul  of 
the  departed  rising  from  its  earthly  dross,  as 

224 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

the  soul  of  Herakles,  according  to  the  much 
later  legend  in  its  Greek  form,  rose  from  his 
funeral  pyre  to  join  the  gods  of  Olympus. 

Our  own  red  Indians  were  not  behind  the 
primitive  Europeans  and  Asiatics  in  their 
reverence  for  the  eagle,  as  any  picture  of  a 
chief  with  eagles'  feathers  in  his  hair  will 
testify.  A  deluge  myth  of  the  Dakotah 
Indians  explains  the  origin  of  the  red  pipe- 
stone  in  the  Minnesota  quarries,  a  region 
sacred  among  red  men,  where  the  seekers  after 
pipe-stone  laid  aside  their  weapons.  When 
the  waters  rose,  a  mass  of  Indians  who  had  fled 
to  a  hilltop  were  overwhelmed  and  perished  on 
the  spot ;  it  is  their  fossil  flesh  which  gives  the 
pipe-stone  its  dark-red  hue.  But  one  woman 
escaped.  A  great  eagle,  who  was  really  her 
father,  swooped  down  before  her  and  she 
seized  his  foot,  so  that  by  his  aid  she  reached 
a  lofty  mountain.  From  the  twins  she  bore 
descend  all  the  red  men  now  on  earth. 

Thus  in  the  earliest  myths  of  Greece,  as  in 
IS  225 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Euro 


pe 


those  of  America,  of  Italy  and  the  Baltic  we 
find  the  bird  gods  acting  their  parts.  Is  it  any 
wonder  that  Zeus  should  have  an  attendant 
eagle,  whose  divinity  cannot  be  concealed,  who 
acts  as  messenger  to  bring  Hebe  or  Gany- 
medes  to  act  as  cup-bearer  to  the  gods  and 
bears  in  its  talons  the  dread  thunderbolt? 
When  human  gods  were  conceived  of,  the 
animal  gods  were  not  dismissed,  but  became 
their  adjuncts.  It  is  plain  enough  that  Zeus 
and  his  eagle  were  once  the  same,  just  as  Picus 
and  his  woodpecker,  Athene  and  her  owl. 

Achilleus  has  a  parallel  in  Wales  in  the 
god  Lieu  "  light "  son  of  Arianrhod  "  silver 
wheel "  (a  close  parallel  of  "  silver-footed " 
Thetis)  and  the  god  Gwydion.  Lieu  cannot 
be  destroyed ;  like  Samson  he  is  a  sun  god  in 
whose  armor  his  foes  can  find  no  flaw.  But  he 
has  his  Delilah  and  she  tells  them  how  to  kill 
Lieu.  So  Achilleus  the  invulnerable  was  said 
to  have  been  slain  because  he  went  to  a  tryst 
he  had  made  with  Polyxena,  daughter  of  Priam. 

226 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

When  Lieu  is  wounded,  he  utters  a  loud  cry 
and  flies  oflF  in  the  shape  of  an  eagle. 
Achilleus,  like  Lieu,  is  the  descendant  of  Zeus 
and  his  sister  Hera.  Zeus  undergoes  the 
couvade,  when  Typhon  uses  on  Zeus  the 
sickle  and  cuts  out  his  "  tendons."  This  made 
Zeus  helpless  like  a  woman  —  the  couvade. 
Here  we  see  in  Italy  and  Wales  the  traits  of 
eagle  and  cuckoo  blent  in  one  story.  Achil- 
leus is  called  purisoos  "  fiery "  and  ligyron 
"  shrill."  The  first  syllables  of  his  name  sug- 
gest Doric  acha,  "  roar."  At  the  court  of 
Lycomedes  on  the  isle  of  Scyros,  hidden 
among  girls,  he  was  called  Pyrrha  from  his 
golden  locks.  He  was  educated  by  Phoenix 
the  sun  hero,  was  hot-headed,  violent  and  a 
terrible  fighter ;  his  sulking  in  his  tent  after 
the  death  of  Patroklos  may  be  the  survival  of 
the  couvade.  The  contest  with  the  river 
Scamander  shows  his  sun  origin.  Now  though 
Kalev  does  no  deed  like  this,  Kalevipoeg,  his 
reputed  son,  has  a  contest  with  Lake  Peipus. 

227 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

In  such  myths  and  legends  we  see  an  inti- 
mate blending  of  an  animal  and  a  human  god, 
the  bird  representing  that  more  archaic  part  of 
the  double  which  descended  from  a  very  remote 
epoch,  when  the  animal  itself  was  worshipped 
and  the  idea  of  divine  beings  in  the  shape  of 
man  had  not  risen  above  the  fear  of  the  return- 
ing spirit  of  a  magician.  It  seems  impossible 
to  believe  that  men  who  had  once  conceived 
of  a  well-ordered  community  of  human  gods 
on  Olympus  would  have  then  evolved  such 
barbaric  and  often  repulsive  stories  about  bird 
gods  as  we  find  in  Greek  mythology. 

Everything  points  to  such  myths  as  sur- 
vivals from  a  much  ruder  age.  The  parallel 
which  may  be  drawn  between,  on  the  one  side, 
Achilleus  and  his  son  Pyrrhus  (fire)  and,  on 
the  other,  the  Finnish  eagle  that  brings  fire 
from  heaven,  seems  to  demand  the  early  exist- 
ence in  Greece  of  a  people  akin  in  mental 
traits  to  Finnish  tribes,  a  people  that,  so  far 
from    being   driven   out    or    cut    off  by   the 

228 


Bird  Gods  in  Ancient  Europe 

Greeks,  remained  in  the  land  and  gave  impor- 
tant elements  to  Greek  mythology.  Similar 
phenomena  are  found  in  Italy,  Scandinavia, 
Germany  and  the  British  islands ;  we  find  them 
also  on  the  Nile  and  the  Euphrates.  They 
represent  an  early  movement  of  the  mind 
toward  higher  things.  Their  importance  for  a 
correct  understanding  of  the  origins  of  religion 
can  hardly  be  overstated. 


229 


INDEX 


ACHiLLEUS,  son  of  Peleus 
and  Thetis,  xii;  "Achilleus" 
once  meant  eagle,  216;  in- 
structed by  Cheiron,  220;  he- 
roic descendant  of  an  eagle 
god,  220;  his  name  same  in 
root  as  Kaleva  and  aquila, 
220;  son  of  male  pigeon,  his 
mother  thrusts  him  in  flames, 
220 ;  ends  as  an  eagle  by  be- 
ing burned,  221  ;  pre-Homeric 
forms :  a  son  of  Galatus  with 
white  hair;  a  son  of  Zeus 
and  Lamia,  222  ;  another  who 
taught  Cheiron ;  a  pristine 
Achilleus,  son  of  the  Earth, 
223 ;  parallel  to  him  in  Lieu  of 

23 


Welsh  legends,  226;  called 
"  fiery  "  and  "  shrill,"  violent 
eagle  traits,  227 ;  fight  with 
Scamander  has  parallel  in 
Kalevipoeg,  227. 

Adam  of  Bremen,  on  worship 
of  birds  by  heathen  Lithua- 
nians, ix ;  on  worship  of  Tara- 
pilla,  172. 

Adrian's  gift  of  jewelled  pea- 
cock to  the  temple  of  Hera, 
136. 

JExa.,  Island  of  Kirke,  163. 

^etes  of  Colchis,  father  of 
Kirke,  she-hawk,  164;  his 
name  is  Eagle,  164 ;  fire-breath- 
ing oxen,  199,  215,  221. 


Index 


^lius,  the  praetor,  a  wood- 
pecker settled  on  his  head, 
44;  averted  danger  from 
Rome,  44. 

^neas,  xii;  from  oinas  dove, 
is  the  dove  god  humanized, 
15,  17;  bird  traits,  19;  not  a 
Trojan,  but  ally  of  Priam,  15. 

Aetites,  eagle  stones  found  in 
eyries,  help  women  in  labor, 
213,  214. 

Ahti,  god  of  waters,  same  as 
Lemminkainen,  old  love  god 
of  Finns,  114. 

Aino,  parallel  of  Syrinx  and 
female  Venus,  12 ;  mocks 
Vaino,  13,  20;  grief  too  great 
for  marriage  with  old  man, 
incest  suggested,  126;  parallel 
of  Syrinx  sought  by  Pan, 
126. 

Alcseus,  the  poet,  his  bird  name, 

139- 

Alcaius,  the  halcyon,  heralds 
approach  of  Apollo  in  spring, 
200. 

Althamenes  of  Crete,  fated  to 
kill  his  father  Katreus  (pea- 
cock), 137. 

Amazon  of  Scotland,  Scatach 
the  "  shadowy  "  keeps  a  mili- 
tary school,  98. 

American  spiders,  165  ;  suggest 
swastika,  165;  on  shell  gor- 
gets, 166;  Indians  ignorant  of 
wheel,  167. 

Andromeda,  CuchuUaind  finds  a 
princess  exposed  on  seashore 
to  monsters,  202. 

Anubis  vase  from  Clusium,  208. 


Aoife,  daughter  of  Scottish 
Amazon  Scatach,  her  love 
affair  with  CuchuUaind,  98. 

Aphareus,  207. 

Aphrodite,  Greek  goddess  of 
love,  her  bird  the  dove,  the 
love  bird,  6;  but  sometimes 
the  sparrow,  7;  her  place  in 
Italy  filled  by  male  and  female 
Venuses,  12;  higher  sphere 
than  that  of  old  bird  gods,  15  ; 
her  favorite  Pha6n,  140 ;  she 
was  said  to  have  mourned 
Adonis  by  leaping  from  Leu- 
cadian  Rock,  140. 

Apollo,  swan  given  to  him,  6; 
turns  Kuknos  into  swan,  192  ; 
heralded  by  Alcaius  and  drawn 
by  swans,  200. 

Arabian  Nights,  swan  changes 
in,  191. 

Arachne,  turned  to  spider  by 
Pallas  Athene,  164. 

Ares,  woodpecker  assigned  to 
him,  6. 

Argonautica,  not  imitated  in 
Kalevala,  143. 

Aristophanes'  name  for  wood- 
pecker, 42. 

Arthur,  his  talks  with  the  Eagle 
of  Gwernabwy,  214 ;  his  mys- 
terious origin,  96. 

Aruna,  charioteer  of  Indra,  was 
born  of  an  egg,  215. 

Arviella,  on  the  swastika,  164. 

Aryans,  the,  xiii,  xiv,  xvii. 

Atossa,  queen  of  Persia,  her 
crime  was  that  of  bird  gods, 
especially  cuckoo  gods,  109. 

Audubon,  the  sharp  eye  of,  16. 


232 


Index 


Auk,  great  auk,  exterminated, 

22. 

Aurora,  sister  of  Pallas  Athene, 

1 60. 
Auspex    on     Etruscan    scarab 

with  bird,  43;    with    Roman 

legions ;  at  founding  of  Rome, 

69;  Etruscan,  69. 
Awke,  awkward,  English  words 

derived  from  gawk,  cuckoo, 

79- 

Bacchus  or  Dionysos,  200;  cu- 
rious connection  with  swan, 
208. 

Balder,  shot  like  Lemminkainen 
and  Achilleus,  199. 

Bertha  of  the  Big  Feet,  a  Val- 
kyr or  swan  maiden,  192. 

Blathmaid,  "  blossom,"  taken 
from  Cuchullaind  by  Curoi, 
who  is  slain  in  revenge,  100. 

Briseis,  captive  taken  from 
Achilleus,  parallel  in  Blath- 
maid of  Ireland,  99. 

Britons,  the  ancient,  xiii. 

Buddha,  xvii. 

Buffalo,  swept  from  North 
America,  xviii. 

Camesa,  wife  and  sister  of  Ja- 
nus, shows  cuckoo  origin,  77. 

Castor,  son  of  Leda,  207,  215. 

Ceres,  turns  son  of  Styx  to 
owl,  170. 

Charon,  on  Etruscan  coffins,  174. 

Cheiron,  restored  sight  to 
Phoenix,  220. 

Chinese,  swan  enchantment, 
191. 


Christ,  xvii. 

Christian  soldiers  destroy  owl 
temple,  172. 

Ciconia,  Latin  word  for  stork, 
derived  from  Esth  kuik,  190. 

Clusium,  scarab  seal  found  at, 
171  ;  Anubis  vase,  208. 

Conanicut,  211. 

Conchobar,  an  old  Irish  hero, 
his  life  based  on  cuckoo's, 
77,  92;  robs  kingdom  from 
his  father  and  marries  his 
mother,  107. 

Cormac  Conlingeas,  son  of  Con- 
chobar by  Nessa,  107. 

Corpse-bird,  corpse-hen,  names 
for  owl,  155. 

Corvus,  Valerius  Corvus  helped 
in  duel  by  raven  or  crow,  46 ; 
parallels  in  Wales  and  Ireland, 
46. 

Couvade,  "brooding,"  custom  of 
nursing  the  father  when  a  child 
is  born,  xvi ;  still  existing 
among  Tupis,  formerly  among 
Spanish  Basques,  88;  among 
old  Irish  and  Persians,  89 ; 
explanation  sought  in  psychol- 
ogy, but  really  found  in  imita- 
tion of  birds,  90;  explains 
lethargy  of  Ulster  heroes  and 
mutilation  of  Saturn,  108,  144. 

Cuchullaind,  xvi;  helped  by 
two  speaking  ravens,  46;  his 
doubtful  birth,  76  ;  regarded 
as  historical  by  the  Irish,  91 ; 
cuckoo  in  his  name  and  ex- 
ploits, 92  ;  was  a  boy  named 
Setanta,  92  ;  how  he  got  his 
second  name,  93 ;  survival  in 


233 


Index 


Ireland  of  Finnic  "Kukku- 
lind,"  cuckoo  bird,  94;  scan- 
dalous birth  of  Cuchullaind, 
95 ;  cuckoo  episodes  and 
dates  in  his  life,  96 ;  looseness 
of  his  morals,  97;  swells  up 
in  anger  like  a  bird,  97 ;  visits 
military  school  of  Scatach,  98 ; 
his  son  by  Scatach's  daughter 
fights  with  and  is  slain  by  him, 
99 ;  adventure  with  "  Blossom," 
99;  uses  "sea  magic,"  100; 
expert  with  the  sling,  loi  ; 
his  odd  spear,  the  gaebolg, 
loi  ;  understands  speech  of 
birds  and  is  great  bird-catcher, 
102 ;  much  to  do  with  swans, 
strikes  two  which  turn  to  fairy 
women,  202 ;  rescues  princess 
from  Fomori,  and  she  follows 
as  swan,  202. 
Cuckoo,  xii,  6 ;  called  gowk  and 
gawk  in  England,  Gauch  in 
German,  54,  79 ;  gives  word 
gauche  to  French,  54,  79 ;  dif- 
ferent in  size,  voice,  and  habits 
from  American  cuckoos,  55; 
ventriloquist,  55 ;  saddled 
with  crimes  by  old  peoples, 
56  ;  mother  bird  lays  in  other 
birds'  nests,  but  does  not  en- 
tirely desert  her  young,  56; 
ancients  admired  its  supposed 
wickedness,  57 ;  habits  of 
cuckoo  and  fosterage  of  chil- 
dren in  Ireland,  57  ;  young  ig- 
norant of  its  parents  and  breth- 
ren, possibilities  of  incest,  58 ; 
in  Indian  Rigveda  cuckoo 
prophetic  and  omniscient,  60 ; 


in  Germany  foretells  fortune 
for  the  year,  60;  Chaucer's 
denunciation,  61  ;  converses 
with  Vaino,  64 ;  Lemmin- 
kainen's  bird,  64 ;  Scandina- 
vian rhyme  to  foretell  future 
by  cuckoo's  cry,  65  ;  cuckoo- 
ale  in  England,  65 ;  yokes  of 
horses  carry  cuckoo  in  Fin- 
land, 66;  colors  of  cuckoo, 
67 ;  synonym  for  awkwardness, 
53 ;  68 ;  form  of  cuckoo  as- 
sumed by  Zeus  to  make  Hera, 
his  sister,  his  wife,  68;  bird 
effigies  in  Mashonaland  per- 
haps cuckoos,  68 ;  cuckoo's 
ignorance  of  parents  and  fam- 
ily the  germ  of  stories  of  Sieg- 
,  fried,  Kullervo,  Kalevipoeg. 
75 ;  Cuchullaind,  Gwalchmei, 
76 ;  Conchobar,  Janus  and 
Saturn,  77 ;  Faunus,  Italian 
form  of  Pan,  78 ;  hibernation 
of  cuckoos  in  trees,  80 ;  rea- 
sons for  laying  eggs  in  foreign 
nests,  82 ;  called  Welsh  ambas- 
sador, 83 ;  "  cuckoo-penners 
of  Somerset,"  84;  cuckoo 
trait  in  King  Arthur  who  has 
children  by  his  sister,  85 ; 
Gwalchmei,  "  hawk  of  May," 
means  the  cuckoo,  86  ;  useful- 
ness of  cuckoo  to  man,  89 ; 
cuckoo  demigods  of  Ireland 
and  Finland,  90. 

Curoi,  King  of  Kerry,  slain  by 
Cuchullaind,  99. 

Cwm  Cawlwyd,  owl  of,  219. 

Cygnet,  a  Norman  word,  184. 

Cygnus    musicus,    Finnish    ku- 


234 


Index 


kene,    little    moon,    189;    in 
Greek  myth,  193. 

Dechtir6  of  Ulster,  sister  and 
wife  of  Conchobar,  mother  of 
Cuchullaind,  96. 

Deino,  name  of  one  of  Graiai, 
197. 

Delos,  Hyperboreans  send  gifts 
to  Apollo's  shrine  on,  11. 

Diarmuid  of  Ireland,  demigod 
with  some  traits  like  Cuchul- 
laind, 92. 

Dionysos,  wine  god,  is  a  night 
god,  208 ;  connection  with  the 
swan,  209. 

Di-oscuri,  darkness  gods.  Castor 
and  Pollux,  207. 

Dirge  of  the  swan  founded  on 
fact,  73,  183. 

Dove,  the  douve  with  her 
eyen  meeke,  3;  goes  with 
Venus,  6 ;  doves  draw 
Aphrodite's  chariot,  6 ;  called 
"wedded  turtil"by  Chaucer, 
6;  Christian  use  as  symbol,  7 } 
both  for  marriages  and  fun- 
erals, 8;  prophetic  doves  at 
Dodona,  10 ;  old  name  for 
rock  pigeon  in  Greek  is  oinas, 
same  root  as  Venus,  14, 16;  at 
temple  in  Jerusalem,  not 
eaten  at  Hierapolis,  18 ; 
iEneas  from  oinas,  an  old 
dove  god,  19;  gold  image 
with  dove  on  head  at  Hiera- 
polis, 20;  doves  at  marriages 
and  funerals,  21  ;  on  grave 
slabs  of  Longobards,  21  ; 
portents  from,  21. 

2- 


Druid,  31. 

Drumming  of  woodpecker,  30; 
Lapp  use  of  magic  drum,  31. 

Duck,  Labrador  duck  extermin- 
ated in  the  United  States,  23, 

Diomedes,  like  father  Tydeus 
and  patroness  Pallas,  descends 
from  an  owl  god,  17. 

Dodona,  oak  grove  and  doves 
gave  prophetic  oracles,  10; 
prophetesses  tell  Herodotus  a 
tale,  10 ;  an  oracle  place  long 
before  Greeks,  1 1 ;  tributes 
to  Apollo  from  Hyperboreans 
stopped  there,  11 ;  oracle  told 
Greeks  to  use  old  names  of 
gods,  14 ;  dove  offerings  at 
Jerusalem,  18;  never  eaten  at 
Hierapolis,  Syria,  18 ;  one  of 
many  groves  seized  by  Greeks, 
20. 

Eagle,  at  very  early  period  bird 
of  Pan,  132,  145;  given  later 
to  Zeus,  132  ;  Eagle  of  Zenith 
of  American  tribes,  145  ;  bird 
of  fire  and  lightning,  210 ; 
symbol  of  five  great  nations, 
211;  legends  of  immortality 
of  eagle,  212;  dialogue  be- 
tween eagle  and  King  Arthur, 
212;  Charlemagne's  bronze 
eagle,  212;  a  guardian  of  Wal- 
halla,  213;  Romans  called 
banners  eagles,  213;  stones 
found  in  eyries  cure  disease 
and  help  women  in  labor,  213; 
Simurg  of  Persia  discussed 
predestination  with  Solomon, 
214;  eagle  of  Gwernabwy  and 

5 


Index 


King  Arthur,  214;  the  garuda 
of  India,  214;  brings  Kalev 
to  Esthonia,  215;  Louhi 
takes  eagle  shape,  215;  Achil- 
leus  once  had  meaning  of 
eagle,  216;  Louhi  turns  into 
monstrous  eagle,  217  ;  Louhi 
makes  a  fiery  eagle  to  stop 
Lemminkainen,  217 ;  Lem- 
minkainen  flees  home  as  an 
eagle,  218  ;  eagle's  egg  raked 
up  from  sea,  218 ;  copper  mani- 
kin appears  under  eagle's 
wing,  218 ;  parable  for  fire, 
219;  great  age  attributed  to 
eagle,  219  ;  picture  of  phcenix 
in  Egypt  was  like  an  eagle's, 
220 ;  Achilleus,  hero,  descen- 
dant of  an  eagle  god,  221 ; 
same  root  as  Kalev  and 
aquila,  221 ;  Achilleus,  son  of 
Galatus,  is  the  white  or  bald- 
headed  eagle,  222 ;  earliest 
Achilleus,  an  eagle  to  whom 
Hera  fled  as  cuckoo,  223 ; 
North  American  Indians 
revere  eagle,  225;  deluge 
myth  of  Dakotahs,  an  eagle 
saved  the  red  race,  225;  the 
eagle  of  Zeus,  226;  Lieu  of 
Welsh  legend,  when  killed 
flies  off  as  eagle,  226;  eagle 
combined  with  ideas  of  flame, 
227 ;  eagle  traits  of  Achilleus, 
227. 

Edward  I.  of  England,  oath  on 
swan,  179. 

Eetion,  his  son  Kupselos  ex- 
posed in  box,  195;  Eetion 
means  eagle,  196. 

236 


Egret,  white  egret  extirpated 
from  Florida,  23. 

Elephants,  slaughtered  in  Africa, 
xviii. 

Eleusinian  mysteries,  29. 

Enyo,  name  of  one  of  Graiai, 
197. 

Eocho  the  Blue-green,  monster 
overcome  by  Cuchullaind,  98. 

Eocho  Rond,  hero  overcome  by 
Cuchullaind,  100,  loi. 

Esthonians,  live  as  Russian  sub- 
jects on  Baltic,  70;  sacrificed 
slaves  to  god  Tarapilla,  172, 
173;  word  for  "little  moon," 
like  cygnus,  kuknos,  189; 
Kalev  brought  to  Esthonia  on 
eagle's  back,  205. 

Etruscans ;  Etruscan  scarab  with 
figure  of  bird  seer,  43 ;  their 
auspexes  taught  in  Rome,  69 ; 
Minerva  was  a  soul  guide, 
169;  tomb  at  Perugia,  170; 
scarab  seals,  170;  old  belief 
of  Lycian  origin,  171;  art 
suggests  Assyria,  171;  wine- 
strainers  in  tombs,  208 ; 
museum  at  Florence,  208. 

Fand,  daughter  of  Mananan 
mac  Lir,  202. 

Faunas,  son  of  Picus  the  wood- 
pecker, 27  ;  shows  cuckoo  by 
marrying  his  sister  Fauna,  78 ; 
parallel  of  Pan  in  Greece, 
Vaino  in  Finland,  Fion  in 
Ireland,  male  Venus  in  Italy, 
Wunsch  in  Germany,  127; 
very  little  known  of  Faunus, 
135- 


Index 


Fenians  of  Ireland  parallels  of 
Pans,  Panisci  and  Fauni,  128. 

Fiach,  Irish  for  raven,  42. 

Finn  mac  Cool,  modern  Irish 
form  of  Pan,  Vaino,  Faunus, 
etc.,  132. 

Finns,  the,  xiii;  Russian  subjects, 
live  on  Baltic,  70 ;  with  Esths 
worshipped  owl  gods,  173. 

Fion  of  Ireland,  xvi;  regarded 
as  historical  person,  91  ;  dives 
into  lake  and  comes  up  an 
aged  man,  115;  rescues  Oisin 
from  fairies,  116,  144. 

Firbolgs,  old  subject  race  of 
Ireland  ;  fly  to  Ulster  and  re- 
turn to  Connaught,  114;  give 
name  to  pawns  in  chess,  114. 

Florence,  170,  208. 

Florida,  egret  extirpated  from, 

23- 
Fomori,  fog  and  undersea  giants 

of  Irish  legend,  202. 
Fylfot;  origin  of  swastika,  165. 

Garuda,  Indian  bird  like  Si- 
murg  and  legendary  eagles, 
214. 

Gauche,  French,  "left  hand," 
"sinister"  from  Teutonic  name 
for  cuckoo,  79. 

Gawk  and  gowk,  Gauch,  gbk, 
English,  German,  and  Swed- 
ish terms  for  cuckoo,  79. 

Giraldus  Cambrensis  on  Eagle 
of  Snowdon,  219. 

Goll,  a  giant  killed  by  Cuchul- 
laind,  97. 

Graal,  swan  and  knight  of,  recall 
Apollo,  200. 


Graiai,  hoary  at  birth  like  cyg- 
nets, 196;  swans  in  shape, 
one-eyed,  Valkyrs,  196;  their 
terrible  names,  197. 

Greece,  analysis  of  myths  r^ 
quires  belief  in  early  non- 
Aryans  akin  to  Finnic  races 
who  gave  elements  to  Greek 
mythology,  228. 

Goethe  on  cuckoo,  60. 

Goose-flesh,  to  feel;  its  origin 
suggested,  192. 

Gorgons,  watched  by  Graiai, 
197,  208. 

Gubernatis,  xiv,  45. 

Gwalchmei,  Gawayne  of  Britain, 
76  ;  his  name  explained,  85. 

Gwemabwy,  the  eagle  of,  its 
great  age,  219. 

Harpies  and  Phoenix,  220. 

Harpy  Tomb,  171. 

Helen,  born  of  egg,  164;  same 
as  Selene,  moon,  203. 

Hera,  peacock  assigned  to  her, 
6 ;  seduced  by  Zeus,  her 
brother,  under  form  of  cuckoo, 
68,  86 ;  carries  a  cuckoo  on 
her  sceptre,  87,  108. 

Herakles  kills  Kuknos,  son  of 
Mars,  194  ;  bums  himself  free 
of  earth  like  eagle,  224. 

Herodotus,  his  story  of  doves 
that  founded  the  oracles  of 
Dodona  and  Jupiter  Ammon, 
10;  ignorant  of  speaking 
parrots  and  ravens,  1 1 ;  in  his 
time  everything  derived  from 
Egypt,  12,  15;  silence  on 
mysteries,  29. 


237 


Index 


Hierapolis,  sacred  city  in  Syria, 
dove  not  eaten  except  in  rites, 
i8 ;  golden  image  with  pigeon 
on  its  head,  20. 

Hiisi,  Finnish  demon  or  god  of 
underworld  ;  Lemminkainen 
catches  his  magic  moose, 
bridles  his  flame  horse,  199. 

Hildebrand  -  Hadubrand  fight 
paralleled  by  Cuchullaind, 
Rustem,  Ilya  of  Murom,  108. 

Holy  Ghost  symbolized  by 
dove,  X. 

Hoopoe ;  Tereus  for  his  crime 
turned  into  a  hoopoe,  48 ; 
called  the  cuckoo's  lackey, 
109. 

Horus  of  Egypt,  son  of  Isis  by 
Osiris,  after  the  tatter's  death, 
1 18 ;  son  of  the  cuckoo,  he 
turns  into  a  hawk,  119. 

Huns,  the,  xiv. 

Hyperboreans,  peoples  of  north- 
em  Europe,  12;  Apollo  came 
from  them  at  midsummer, 
20a 


IcARius,  father  of  Penelope,  164. 

Icarus,  his  bird  flight,  164. 

Icelanders  on  voice  of  swan, 
197. 

Idas,  207. 

Ilaeira,  207. 

Iliad,  the,  xii. 

Ilmarinen,  the  Vulcan  of  the 
Finns,  a  form  of  Pan  and 
Vaino,  turns  his  bride  into  a 
sea-gull,  49,  1 27 ;  Lemmin- 
kainen not  bidden  to  his  wed- 
ding, 217. 

238 


India,  swastika  not  derived  from, 
165. 

Irish ;  fosterage  among,  57 ;  soft- 
ening of  gutturals  in,  79;  cou- 
vade  among,  89;  chroniclers 
made  gods  into  historical  per- 
sons, 91  ;  treatise  on  bird 
auguries,  102;  swan  in  leg- 
ends, 202 ;  their  term  for  pea- 
cock, 133. 

Isvara,  form  of  Siva,  picks  up 
red-hot  iron,  174. 

Italy,  destruction  of  birds  in,  23. 

Ithaka,  Telegonos  lands  on,  164. 

Janus  shows  the  cuckoo  by 
marrying  his  sister,  77. 

Japanese  demon  queller,  174. 

Jupiter  approaches  Hera  as 
cuckoo,  68,  86;  approaches 
Leda  as  swan,  203,  204. 

Kaf,  mountains  where  the 
Simurg  lives,  214. 

Kai  Kails,  Persian  king,  his 
campaign  against  the  white 
deevs,  103 ;  bound  eagles  to  a 
car  to  scale  the  sky,  104;  his 
dynasty  is  a  set  of  birds,  104. 

Kalev,  god  who  gave  name  to 
Kaleva ;  of  the  race  of  giants, 
marries  Linda,  the  bird,  73 ; 
father  of  Kalevipoeg,  a  post- 
humous son,  73;  carried  to 
Kalevala  on  back  of  an  eagle, 
205 ;  Linda,  born  of  an  egg, 
prefers  him,  205 ;  Kalev  is 
eagle,  215;  Greek  analogue  in 
^etesof  Colchis,  215;  Kaleva 
old  eagle  god  of  Finland,  221  j 


Index 


Kalev  same  in  root  as  Achil- 
leus  and  Latin  aquila,  221. 

Kaleva  or  Kalev  not  used  now 
in  Finland  for  "eagle,"  216. 

Kaleva,  the,  xii ;  epic  of  the 
Finns,  quoted,  39;  gave  Long- 
fellow impulse  for  "  Hia- 
watha," 59;  on  eagle  and 
cuckoo,  63,  64;  cuckoos  on 
horse  yokes,  66;  shows  that 
Lapps  were  magicians  for 
Finns,  7 1 ;  on  fate  of  Aino, 
126,  127;  effects  of  Vaino's 
harp,  142,  143. 

Kalevipoeg,  hero,  reputed  son 
of  Kalev  the  eagle,  real  son 
of  Linda  the  bird,  73 ;  parallel 
of  Siegfried,  74 ;  a  cuckoo  god, 
he  dishonors  his  sister  who 
drowns  herself,  75;  takes  his 
reputed  father's  heritage  by 
beating  his  brothers,  96. 

Kalevipoeg,  the,  xii ;  epic  of  the 
Esths ;  shows  that  Finns  were 
magicians  for  Esths,  71 ; 
quoted  for  birds,  72  ;  parallels 
of  metals  and  birds,  72. 

Kalypso,  parallel  of  Venus  in 
Tannhauser  legend,  40. 

Karagash,  swan  is  kfl  in,  190. 

Karaku-tengu,  crow-demons  of 
Japan  born  of  egg,  46,  47,  204. 

Kemnitz  in  the  Mark,  swan 
legend,  201. 

Kilgwri,  the  blackbird  of,  its 
great  age,  219. 

Kirke,  meaning  of  her  name, 
"she-hawk,"  164;  daughter 
of  eagle,  164. 

Koibal,  swan  is  kfi  in,  190. 


Kuknos,  xii ;  Esthonian  kukene 
"little  moon,"  189;  king  of 
Ligurians,  193;  a  son  of  Mars 
killed  by  Herakles,  194;  a 
son  of  Neptune  strangled  by 
Achilleus,  195;  legend  of  son 
of  this  Kuknos,  195. 

Kullervo,  the  boy  of  gigantic 
strength  in  the  Kalevala; 
destroys  in  revenge  the  wife 
of  his  master  Ilmarinen,  49: 
obscurity  of  his  birth,  75,  76; 
a  cuckoo  origin  to  his  story, 
77 ;  his  laiziness,  84,  144. 

Kupselos,  son  of  Eetion,  set 
afloat  like  Moses,  195 ;  a  son 
of  the  eagle,  196. 

Kuveras,  god  of  subterranean 
wealth,  45. 

La  Motte  FouQui,  Undine, 
202. 

Lapland,  home  of  wild  swan, 
190;  home  of  singing  swan, 
190. 

Lapps,  xiii;  still  use  the  conjur- 
ing drum,  32 ;  idols  in  shape 
of  birds,  172. 

Leda,  her  bird  marriage,  164; 
mother  of  Helen,  Castor  and 
Pollux,  203;  same  as  Linda 
(bird)  of  the  Kalevipoeg, 
203  ;  Zeus  approaches  her  as 
swan,  203 ;  difference  from 
Linda,  207. 

Lemmetar,  love  goddess  of 
Finns,  counterpart  of  Lem- 
minkainen,  114. 

Lemminkainen,  demi-god  of  the 
Kalevala,  a  loose  lover,  92; 


239 


Index 


originally  a  male  god  of  love, 
97 ;  along  with  Lemmetar, 
goddess  of  love,  114;  sent 
to  hell  by  Louhi,  he  is  cut 
to  pieces,  115;  fails  to  get 
invited  to  marriage  feast, 
attacks  Pohjola  and  kills  son 
of  Louhi,  217. 

Lesbos,  a  centre  for  bird  heroes 
and  birds  associated  with 
gods,  139. 

Leucadian  Rock,  bird  worship 
and  human  sacrifices  attach- 
ing to  it,  140. 

Leukippos,  207. 

Leukophrys,  island  near  Troad, 

195- 

Liban,  daughter  of  Mananan 
mac  Lir,  202. 

Libya,  a  dove-woman  flies 
thither  from  Egypt,  10. 

Ligyes,  Ligurians  beyond  the 
Eridanus,  193 ;  their  king 
Kuknos,  swan,  194,  195. 

Linda,  born  of  an  egg,  she  is 
mother  of  Kalevipoeg  and 
wife  of  Kalev,  the  eagle, 
73 ;  Linda  means  bird,  73 ; 
Linda  same  as  Leda  mother 
of  Pollux,  203 ;  prefers  Kalev 
the  eagle,  205 ;  her  father  the 
moon,  uncle  the  sun,  brothers 
the  birch-trees,  206 ;  is  a  swan, 
206,  215. 

Linnupete,  "  bird  deceiver,"  pre- 
caution of  Esthonians  to 
guard  against  magic  of  birds, 
117. 

Lithuanians  sacrificed  slaves  to 
birds,  ix. 


Lochlan,  in  Irish  legends,  Scot- 
land or  Norway,  but  really 
the  realm  below  the  sea,  203. 

Longobards  used  slabs  carved 
with  doves  for  gravestones,  21. 

Louhi  of  Pohjola  sends  Lem- 
minkainen  to  Tuoni  for  swan 
of  hell,  199,  215,  216,  217. 

Lucian,  19,  20. 

Lugal-turda,  bird  god  on  the 
Euphrates,  probably  a  cuckoo 
god,  105. 

Luig,  Finn  and  Esth  term  for 
swan,  190;  origin  of  name  of 
Ligyes,  Ligurians,  193. 

Lynceus,  207. 

Mahabharata,  the,  xii. 

Mana,  king  of  under-world,  161, 
217, 

Mananan  mac  Lir,  in  Irish 
legend  fairy  king  of  sea,  202  ; 
his  daughters  or  wives  Fand 
and  Liban,  202. 

Mars  (Mavors),  his  bird  was  the 
woodpecker,  27 ;  his  sons 
Romulus  and  Remus  saved  by 
woodpecker,  27 ;  bird  was 
known  by  his  name,  41 ;  Pallas 
Athene  conquers  him,  176. 

Mashonaland,  bird  effigies  in 
ruins  of  Zimbabwe,  30. 

Matiena,  Sabine  bird  gods  at,  30. 

Meave,  Irish  form  of  Mab,  fairy 
queen  of  Ulster,  deserts  her 
husband  Conchobar,  107. 

Mecklenburg,  idols  with  birds 
on  heads  found  in,  20;  Radi- 
gast,  god  of  heathens,  188 ; 
bull's  head  in  arms  of,  186. 


240 


Index 


Medea  in  Argonautica,  parallel 
of  Louhi  the  Hag  of  Pohjola 
in  Kalevala,  216. 

Megarians  claim  Tereus  and 
honor  him  as  a  god,  31. 

Minerva,  in  Etruscan  "heavens- 
red,"  160. 

Minervalia,  five-day  festival  in 
March,  167. 

Modred,  a  son  of  King  Arthur, 
106. 

Mohammed,  xvii. 

Moses,  xvii,  195. 

Miiller,  Max,  on  the  swastika, 
164. 

Munnapoika,  Finnish  "son  of 
egg,"  a  modern  variant  on 
KuUervo,  84. 

Narragansett  Pier,  210. 

Neptune  turns  Kuknos,  his  son, 
into  a  swan,  195. 

Nessa,  queen  of  Ulster,  has 
Cormac  Conlingeas  by  her 
own  son  Conchobar,  107. 

Niurenius,  on  bird  idols  of 
Lapps,  172. 

Nyyrikki,  son  of  Tapio,  Finnic 
god  of  forests,  is  the  red- 
headed woodpecker,  39. 

Odusseus,  xii;  Greek  etymology 
for  his  name,  162 ;  Etruscan 
form,  163 ;  Sikulian,  163 ; 
meaning,  163;  owl  traits,  163; 
cuckoo  traits  in  his  son  by 
Kirke,  164  ;  his  wife  Penelope 
a  daughter  and  sister  of  birds, 
164. 

Odyssey,  the,  xii. 

16  24 


Oesel,  island  in  Baltic,  172; 
bird  god  and  temple,  172,  189. 

Oidipous,  son  of  Laius  and 
Jocasta,  xii ;  his  crimes  are 
cuckoo  crimes,  no;  accord- 
ing to  Pausanias  he  was  half- 
brother  to  the  Sphinx,  in; 
his  story  in  a  modern  Estho- 
nian  folktale,  112. 

Oinas,  old  word  for  rock  pigeon 
in  Greek,  14;  probably  Pelas- 
gian,  14  ;  same  root  as  Venus 
and  iEneas,  15,  16. 

Oisin  of  Ireland,  91  ;  kept  by 
fairies  in  cave,  116. 

Orpheus,  xii ;  with  other  Argo- 
nauts has  dim  resemblances  to 
heroes  of  Kalevala,  143 ; 
especially  Vaino,  144 ;  ex- 
plains through  analogy  of 
Vaino  the  nature  of  Pan,  142, 
144,  145,  216. 

Orphic  mysteries,  29. 

Orte,  bronze  Minerva  found  at, 
169. 

Osiris,  chopped  to  pieces  like 
Lemminkainen,  115,  199. 

Ostrich,  in  Bible,  146. 

Oulixes,  Sikulian  and  early  form 
of  Ulysses,  163. 

Ovid  on  the  woodpecker  on  a 
pillar,  29. 

Owl,  Minerva's  bird,  xi ;  and 
Pallas  Athene's,  6;  sphinxes 
of  helmet  of  Pallas  Athene  in 
Athens  took  the  place  of  owl 
figures,  in;  owls  for  sale  in 
Rome's  streets,  150;  small 
owl  generally  called  she,  151, 
152;  Australian  blacks  think 


Index 


owls  women,  151  ;  in  the 
Bible  was  abomination  to  eat, 
152;  Shakespeare  denounces 
owl,  153;  Minerva  turns 
Nyctimene  into  an  owl  for 
incest,  154;  Blodeued  became 
owl  for  betraying  her  husband, 
154;  on  Athenian  coins,  155; 
usefulness  and  ferocity,  156; 
luctifer,  1 57  ;  glaux,  1 57  ; 
Miner valia  an  owl  festival  167  ; 
in  Rigveda,  168 ;  throttle 
babies,  168;  nine  calls,  168; 
Minerva  early  evolved  from 
owl,  169;  Tarapilla,  Baltic 
owl-god  on  island  of  Oesel, 
172;  Palladium  may  have 
been  owl  idol,  173;  early 
Pallas  an  owl,  173;  owl  gods 
of  Lapps,  etc.,  173;  a  weaver 
in  German  ballads,  176;  owl 
gods  of  Livonians,  188;  eggs 
of  owl  stop  drunkenness, 
209;  owl  of  Cwm  Cawlwyd, 
219. 

Palladium,  stolen  from  Troy, 
163 ;    shaped  like  an  animal, 

173- 
Pallas  Athen^,  xii;  owl  is  her 
bird,  6;  glauk5pis,  157;  wis- 
dom, 157;  her  serpent,  158; 
cock,  1 58  ;  deity  of  night,  1 59 ; 
ornaments  of  helmet,  160 ; 
form  of  Selen^,  160 ;  sister  of 
Aurora,  160 ;  origin  of  name 
Pallas,  160;  descent  from 
Pan,  160;  epithets  Paionia 
and  Pandrosos,  160 ;  why 
bom  of    Jove's    head,     161 ; 


early  worship  like  that  of 
Finns,  173;  origin  of  fame  as 
weaver,  176;  contrasts  in  her 
worship,  175;  quarrels  with 
Poseidon,  Ares,  Hera,  Aphro- 
dite, 177;  owl  traits,  177. 

Pallas,  giant  prototype  of  Pallas 
Athene,  173. 

Pan,  xii ;  oracle  at  Dodona 
originally  his,  13;  in  Germany 
his  parallel  was  Wunsch,  22  ; 
Pan  in  one  part  of  Greece 
called  Phan,  128;  root  of 
name  in  phoenix,  Phoenicia, 
1 28 ;  older  god  in  Greece 
than  Zeus,  Hera,  Apollo,  Mer- 
cury, 129;  older  Turanian 
form  is  Paian,  Paie8n,  healer 
god  in  Iliad,  129;  not  neces- 
sarily a  goat-foot  originally, 
131,  i6i ;  Greek  way  of  express- 
ing rudeness  of  Arcadians,  131 ; 
gave  up  his  birds  to  Zeus  and 
Hera,  132;  gave  his  name  to 
peacock,  132;  in  Old  Ireland 
represented  by  Fion,  now  Finn 
mac  Cool,  132 ;  lo  Paian  in 
Apollo's  temples  retained 
Pan's  name,  134;  Phaon  the 
same  as  Pan,  141  ;  mysterious 
god,  degraded  by  Greeks, 
141 ;  his  character  and  ad- 
ventures hid  under  Orpheus, 
142;  primitive  Turanian  god, 
160. 

Pandion,  king  of  Arcadia  and 
Athens,  48 ;  a  human  form  of 
Pan,  160. 

Pausanias  on  the  sphinx,  no; 
on  serpent  of  Pallas,  1 58. 


242 


Index 


Peacock,  xi ;  assigned  to  Hera, 
6,  124;  falsely  said  to  have 
reached  Greece  under  Alexan- 
der, Solomon  imported  them, 
124;  Chinese  reverence  for 
them,  124;  became  bird  of 
Pan,  taking  its  name  from 
him,  132 ;  name  in  many  lan- 
guages means  sun,  133,  137; 
Greek  name  for  peacock  taken 
from  Persian  tawils,  133  ; 
humming  noise  of  its  feathers, 
134;  on  coins  of  Samos,  135; 
jewelled  peacock  offered  to 
Hera  by  Emperor  Adrian, 
136 ;  katreus  a  name  for 
the  peacock,  also  name  of 
a  Cretan  king,  137  ;  peacocks 
owned  by  Vikingers,  138, 
180 ;  oath  on  the  peacock, 
138 ;  peacock  became  wicked 
to  Christians  from  connection 
with  heathen,  146;  no  such 
prejudice  in  Old  Testament, 
146. 

Pedauque,  la  Reine  P^dauque, 
a  swan  goddess,  192. 

Pelasgians,  general  term  for 
races  about  the  ^gean  before 
the  Greek,  8  ;  also  Pelargians 
as  if  the  "stork  people," 
9 ;  oracle  at  Dodona  was 
Pelasgian,  11  ;  Herodotus 
wrong  in  saying  they  had 
no  names  for  gods,  14 ;  Pelas- 
gian or  non-Aryan  race  of 
Syria,   19. 

Peleia,  male  pigeon,  the  "qua- 
ker,"  found  in  Pelops,  "  dove 
face,"  and  Peleus,  16. 


Peleus,  father  of  Achilleus,  his 
name  means  male  pigeon 
(peleia),  221. 

Pelican,  stupid  bird  taken  up 
for  crests  over  coats  of  arms, 

147. 

Pelops,  not  from  pelos  dark,  but 
peleia  male  pigeon,  his  name 
means  "  Dove  Face,"  i6. 

Penelope,  bird  origin  of,  164. 

Peony,  plant  of  Pan  and  the 
sun,  a  magic  plant,  40. 

Pephredo,  name  of  one  of  the 
Graiai,  197. 

Persian  heroes,  103,  104,  106; 
legends  of  swan  enchantments, 
191. 

Perugia,  tomb  with  owls  and 
serpents,  170. 

Perun,  old  Russian  god  ojt  thun- 
der, 21. 

Philomela  turned  to  nightingale, 
48. 

Phoebe,  207. 

Phoenix,  fabulous  bird  that 
burned  itself  periodically,  was 
the  eagle,  description  of 
picture  in  Herodotus,  220;  a 
form  of  Pan,  220 ;  humanized 
as  the  blind  king  pursued  by 
harpies,  220. 

Phoinikoi  retain  Pan's  name, 
136 ;  brought  the  phoenix  and 
paan  the  peacock  to  Asia 
Minor  and  Europe,  137. 

Pica,  the  magpie,  42. 

Picus,  old  Italian  god,  xii;  was 
the  woodpecker,  25 ;  his  Italiot 
worshippers  like  Lapps  and 
Finns,  32 ;  figured  as  youth 


243 


Index 


with  woodpecker  on  head, 
41 ;  a  Greek  form  was  Tereus, 
49,  51 ;  in  Old  Prussia  as 
PicoUus,  50 ;  marries  Canens 
(singer)  daughter  of  Janus, 
78  ;  his  father  Saturn  and  his 
son  Faunus  show  the  cuckoo 
crime,  78 ;  son  Kuknos  killed 
by  Herakles,  194. 

Pikker  or  Pikne,  thunder  god  of 
Esthonians,  34 ;  parallel  of 
Picus  in  Italy,  34;  prayer  to 
Pikker,  38 ;  later  views  of 
Pikker  in  Esthonian  stories, 
41 ;  Prussian  parallel  in  Picol- 
lus,  50 ;  early  separation  from 
Vaino,  Lemminkainen  and 
Ilmarinen,  127. 

Pittacus,  the  philosopher,  his 
bird  name,  139. 

Plato,  dreamt  Sokrates  fled  to 
his  bosom  as  a  swan,  194. 

Pliny  on  the  woodpecker  as  a 
prophetic  bird,  41 ;  meaning 
for  strix,  168. 

Polish  sounds  twitteringly,  50. 

Pollux,  his  bird  birth,  164,  215. 

Priam  of  Troy,  Pelasgians  his 
allies,  9. 

Procne  turned  to  swallow,  48. 

Ptolemies,  marriage  of  brother 
and  sister,  result  of  bird  god 
worship,  109 ;  cuckoo  traits 
in  their  line,  120. 

Pythagoras,  the  mystic,  his  bird- 
like traits,  139. 

Radigast,  god  of  old  Slavonic 
race,  in  Mecklenburg  with 
head  of  beast,  188 ;  swan  or 


goose  his  bird,  188  ;  his  region 
the  swan's  haunt,  201. 
Rasavahini,  his  idea  that  beasts 
remember    former      benefits, 

XV. 

Rauen,  the  princess  in  the  rock 
at,  40. 

Raven,  name  of  Gaul  who 
sacked  Rome,  45  ;  raven  or 
crow  assists  Valerius  in  com- 
bat, 46 ;  ravens  Hugin  and 
Mugin,  46. 

Rhea,  sister  and  wife  of  Saturn 
shows  cuckoo  origin,  77,  108. 

Rhedynvre,  the  stag  of,  its  great 
age,  219, 

Rhetra,  site  of  old  Vendish  tem- 
ple, 187,  201. 

Rhys,  Professor,  derives  Fand 
from  Latin  unda,  202. 

Rigveda  on  the  cuckoo,  60  ; 
prayer  at  call  of  owl,  168. 

Romulus  and  Remus  saved  by 
woodpecker,  27. 

Roodabeh,  mother  of  Rustem, 
her  labor  helped  by  the 
Simurg,  214. 

Riigen,  island  of  Baltic,  swan 
brings  babies  from,  like  stork, 
197. 

Rustem,  son  of  Zal,  saves  Per- 
sian heroes  from  effect  of 
couvade,  104 ;  his  birth  as- 
sisted by  the  Simurg,  103, 
214  ;  has  same  adventures  as 
Cuchullaind,  fights  with  his 
own  son,  106. 

Sabines  worshipped  wood- 
pecker, 29. 


244 


Index 


Salm^,  in  the  Kalevipoeg,  sister    Shannon  River,  name  explained 


to     Linda     the    bird,     turns 
human   from  being  a  pullet, 

73- 

Samoyeds,  their  use  of  magic 
tabor  or  drum,  32. 

Sampo,  a  talisman  and  wonder- 
working thing,  71  ;  connection 
with  Sappho  and  Shamas 
(sun),  140;  Sampo  at  bottom 
the  same  as  the  Golden 
Fleece,   216,   217. 

Sappho,  xii ;  suggestion  of  bird 
in  her  legend,  140;  perhaps 
her  name  connected  with 
Shamas,  sun  god,  and  Sampo, 
140 ;  threw  herself  from  Leu- 
cadian  Rock  for  Phaon's 
sake,  140. 

Saturn  shows  the  cuckoo  by 
marrying  his  sister,  77,  108; 
his  mutilation  explained 
through  couvade,  108. 

Scatach,  the  "  shadowy,"  Ama- 
zon who  keeps  a  military 
school  in  Scotland,  98. 

Schwan-federn,  German  expres- 
sion, 191. 

Schwartz  on  lightning  symbo- 
lized as  dragon  or  snake,  ix. 

Selene,  moon,  160. 

Semite,  the,  xvii. 

Setanta,  originally  the  name  of 
CuchuUaind  of  Ireland,  92 ; 
his  prowess  as  a  boy,  93. 

Setnau,  Egyptian  tale  of,  story 
of  brother  and  sister  forced  to 
marry,  119. 

Shah  Nameli,  the,  xii ;  bird  and 
cuckoo  heroes  in,  102,  106. 


through  Finnic  roots,  1 13. 

Siberia,  home  of  swan,  190. 

Siegfried,  parallel  in  Kalevipoeg, 
74 ;  dishonors  his  sister,  75  ;  a 
cuckoo  god,  75. 

Sigurd,  his  story  repeated  in 
Siegfried,  75;  is  a  cuckoo 
god,  106. 

Sikulian  name  for  Ulysses,  163. 

Simurg,  fabulous  bird  in  Persia, 
fosters  Zal,  103 ;  is  called  in 
to  help  Roodabeh  in  child- 
birth, 103;  argues  with  Solo- 
mon, 214. 

Slavic  nations,  favorers  of 
cuckoo,  116. 

Snowdon,  the  Eagle  of  the 
Eagle  Mountains,  219. 

Sokrates  in  dream  flies  as  swan 
into  Plato's  bosom,  194. 

Solomon  discusses  predestina- 
tion with  the  Simurg,  214. 

Specht,  German  for  woodpecker, 
parallel  of  Pikker,  name  of 
old  bird  god,  42. 

Sphinx  supposed  by  Pausanias 
to  be  a  monstrous  child  of 
Laius,  III  ;  used  by  Greeks 
as  decoration  in  place  of  owl, 
III. 

Spider;  cross,  a  shorthand  pic- 
ture of  spider,  165 ;  on  Indian 
shell  gorgets,  165  ;  American, 
European,  Asian,  165 ;  foretell 
ruin  of  Thebes,  166;  symbol 
of  weaving  166;  cross  on 
back,  origin  of  swastika,  167. 

Spiegel,  his  edition  of  Rasavi- 
hiui,  xiv. 


245 


Index 


Spinning  whorls  with  swastika 
marks,  165. 

Stheneleus,  father  of  Kuknos 
king  of  the  Ligurians,  193. 

Stork,  Latin  ciconia  from  Finnic 
kuik,  190;  swan  brings  babies 
instead  of  stork  in  RUgen, 
197. 

Subhramanya,  son  of  Vishnu 
of  India,  god  attended  by  the 
peacock,  123. 

Suometar,  Finnish  swan  maiden 
193  ;  born  of  goose  egg,  193. 

Swan,  xi ;  Apollo's  bird,  6 ;  often 
mentioned  in  Kalevipoeg,  72  ; 
one  variety  sings  when  dying, 
73;  oath  on,  179;  "I  swan," 
180  ;  English  and  German 
phrase  "  it  swans  to  me,"  r8i ; 
Order  of  Swan,  181 ;  favorite 
in  heraldry,  182 ;  with  sha- 
mans, 182 ;  feather  is  magical, 
182 ;  musical  variety,  183 ; 
"  game  "  of  swans,  184 ;  Norse 
words  for  swan  and  fairy  simi- 
lar, 185 ;  Elbe  River  perhaps 
named  from  swan,  186 ;  sacred 
bird  in  Edda,  187  ;  swan  on 
head  of  idol  Radigast,  188, 
201  ;  night  and  moon  god, 
189;  kuik  and  luig  in  Estho- 
nian,  190;  sacred  bird  in  Cen- 
tral Asia,  190;  swan  maidens, 
191 ;  swan  legends  of  Kuknos, 
son  of  Neptune,  195;  of  the 
Graiai,  196 ;  in  Riigen  acts 
like  stork,  197 ;  musical  voices, 
198  ;  quarrelsome  bird,  198  ; 
night  flier,  198;  swan  of  hell 
in  Kalevala,  198;  symbol  of 


Apollo  and  Bacchus,  200; 
foretells  death,  201 ;  in  Irish 
legend,  202  ;  Jupiter  ap- 
proaches Leda  as,  203,  204, 
205 ;  genius  of  wine  with 
swan's  head  for  cap,  208. 

Swannery,  a  royal  preroga- 
tive, 184 ;  Lord  Ilchester's, 
185. 

"Swanny,"  exclamation,  origin 
shown,  180. 

Swanskin  found  by  swan  maiden, 
she  flies  away,  191,  202. 

Swastika,  its  origin  found  in 
cross  on  back  of  spiders,  165; 
whence  a  sign  for  weaving 
and  woven  things,  166  ;  when 
on  figures  of  terra  cotta,  etc. 
refers  to  clothing,  167. 

Syrinx,  20. 

Tapio,  Finnish  god  of  woods, 
38  ;  mentioned  as  Nyyrikki  in 
Kalevala,  39;  he  is  a  survival 
of  Pikker,  39. 

Tara's  hill  in  Ireland  parallel 
to  Taara's  hill  in  Esthland, 

"3- 

Tarapilla  means  owl  in  Finnish, 
172;  god  flew  as  owl  to  Oesel, 
172 ;  Adam  of  Bremen  on  wor- 
ship of,  173 ;  his  red-hot  iron 
shaft,  174. 

Tarhapollo,  Finnish  name  for 
owl,  172;  polio  same  root  as 
Pallas,  175. 

Tatar,  swapping  of  the  swan, 
190. 

TSw<ls,Persian  word  for  peacock, 
origin  of  Greek  term,  133. 


246 


Index 


Tereus  changed  to  hoopoe  or 
hawk,  48 ;  his  name  means 
piercer,  a  form  of  Picus  the 
woodpecker,  48. 

Tikka,  modern  Finnic  term  for 
woodpecker,  38. 

Tonn,  tonndi,  underground  de- 
mons of  the  Finns  and  Esths, 

"3- 

Tuatha  d6  Danann,  mythical 
magical  early  race  in  Ireland 
means  "Folk  of  the  Dark 
Gods,"  113. 

Tundareos,  mortal  father  of 
Helen,  164;  the  woodpecker, 
164;  from  root  like  tundo  to 
strike,  207. 

Tuoni,  Finnish  hell,  swan  of 
Tuoni,  199. 

Turanians,  their  gods  assumed 
by  Greeks,  175 ;  Vaino,  Turan- 
ian parallel  of  Pan-Orpheus, 
176. 

Turkestan,  home  of  swan,  190. 

Turks,  the,  xiii. 

Ukko,  Finnish  and  Esthonian 
highest  god  similar  to  Zeus, 
13;  woodpecker  was  his 
special  creation,  37. 

Uluxe,  Etruscan  and  early  Greek 
form  of  Ulysses,  163. 

Ulysses,  his  name  in  Etruscan, 
162;  in  Sikulian,  163;  named 
from  cry  of  owl,  163;  his 
adventures    often     nocturnal, 

163  ;  his  wife  of  bird  descent, 

164  ;  has  a  son  by  "  she-hawk  " 
who  like  a  cuckoo  kills  his 
father,  164. 


Unda,  same  root  as  Fand  daugh* 
ter  Mananan  mac  Lir  of  Ire- 
land, 202. 

Undine,  Fouque's  tale  of,  same 
as  Irish  Fand,  202. 

Untamo,  in  the  Kalevala  the 
uncle  and  father  of  KuUervo, 
76,  77,  106. 

Urda,  well  of,  in  Edda,  187. 

Vaino  or  Vainamoinen,  old  god 
of  Kalevala,  xvi ;  parallel  of 
male  Venus  of  Italy,  catches 
Aino  as  a  fish,  13 ;  born  of  the 
sea  like  Venus,  13;  like 
Venus,  double  trait  of  mar- 
riage and  funeral  celebrant,  20, 
21  ;  parallels  with  Orpheus, 
142,  144 ;  his  adventures  for 
the  Sampo  dimly  like  Argo- 
naut expedition,  143. 

Valkyrs,  swan  maidens  are 
Valkyrs,  192  ;  conductors  of 
souls,  192;  Graiai  were  Val- 
kyrs, 196;  modern  Valkyrs  in 
Mecklenburg,  201  ;  Leda  a 
swan-valkyr,  207. 

Velleda,  a  female  wizard  or 
prophetess  in  Germany,  31. 

Vendish  sounds  twitteringly,  50, 

Venezuela,  egret  soon  be  extri- 
pated  there,  23. 

Venus,  xii ;  her  symbol  the 
dove,  6;  sparrow  also  given 
to  her,  7  ;  her  worship  only 
apparently  the  opposite  of 
death,  8 ;  male  as  well  as 
female  Venus  in  Italy,  12; 
parallel  of  male  Venus  is 
Finnic  Vaino,  of  female,  Fin- 


247 


Index 


nic  Aino,  12  ;  bom  of  sea,  13 ; 
name  explained  through  oinas 
rock  pigeon,  15;  her  favorite 
son  ^neas  a  dove  god  hu- 
manized, 1 5 ;  some  of  her  bird 
traits,  18;  swallow  another 
Venus  bird,  19 ;  Vaino  of 
Finland  has  her  traits,  20; 
male  Venus,  21 ;  in  Germany 
represented  by  Wunsch,  22  ; 
"  cast "  of  Venus  was  the 
lucky  cast,  22. 
Vulcan,  husband  of  Pallas,  158. 

Walriderske,  modern  Val- 
kyrs, 202. 

Weavers,  Pallas  Athene,  164; 
owl's  movement,  176 ;  daugh- 
ters of  sun  and  moon  in  Kale- 
vala,  176. 

Welsh,  great  age  of  certain 
animals  in  legends,  219. 

Wilson,  Thomas,  work  on  swas- 
tika, 165. 

Woodpecker,  blood-red  hood 
and  eye,  27 ;  rescued  Romulus 
and  Remus,  27 ;  worshipped 
by  Italiots,  28;  idol  of  Sa- 
bines,  29 ;  mentioned  by  Ovid, 
29;  drums  on  dead  branch, 
30 ;  a  thunder  bird,  31 ;  sound 
imitated  by  Lapps  on  tabor, 
32 ;  Wotjaks  worship  wood- 
pecker, 34 ;  thunder  god  Pik- 
ker  of  Esths  parallel  of  Picus 
in  Italy,  34 ;  similar  worship 
of  woodpecker  in  America, 
35 ;  guardian  of  hidden  treas- 
ure, 39 ;  modern  Esth  name 
is  tikka,  38;  Tapio,  wood  god. 


is  Pikker-Picus,  39 ;  brings  the 
magic  plant,  40  ;  white  wood- 
pecker opens  treasure  rock, 
40;  Specht  in  German,  fiach 
(raven)  in  Irish,  42 ;  on  old 
Etruscan  scarab  with  an  aus- 
pex,  43 ;  flew  on  head  of 
^lius  the  praetor,  44 ;  in 
White  Russian  superstition 
and  in  the  Pentameron,  45; 
Tereus  was  a  woodpecker  god» 
48 ;  Old  Prussian  Picollus  pro- 
bably a  woodpecker,  50; 
Tundareos,  mortal  father  of 
Leda  the  swan  and  Pollux  the 
owl  is  a  woodpecker,  164,  207. 

Wotjaks  honor  woodpecker,  34. 

Wryneck  called  cuckoo's  maiden, 
109. 

Wunsch,  parallel  in  Germany 
of  Pan  of  Greece,  Vaino  of 
Finland,  Fion  of  Ireland, 
Faunus  and  male  Venus  of 
Italy,  22. 

YouKAHAiNEN,  young  magi- 
cian, brother  of  Aino  the 
suicide,  13;  contends  in 
magic  with  Vaino,  100 ;  prom- 
ises Vaino  his  sister's  hand, 
125. 

Zal  exposed  by  his  father, 
nourished  by  the  Simurg,  103, 
104,  106;  father  of  Rustem, 
calls  in  Simurg  to  help  on  his 
birth,  214. 

Zeus,  eagle  goes  with,  6;  Do- 
dona  a  seat  of  Zeus,  like 
Libyan  temple  of  Ammon,  10; 


248 


Index 


high  place  given  him  by 
Greeks,  15;  takes  place  of 
Pan,  20 ;  assumes  form  of 
cuckoo  to  seduce  his  sister, 
68,  86,  87,  108;  temple  on 
mount  near  Corinth  erected  in 
memory  of  his  trick,  116; 
later  than  Pan,  161, 173 ;  father 
of  Galatus,  202. 
Zezula,  Polish  for  cuckoo,  116. 


Zimbabwe;  carved  stone  birds 
in  ruins  at,  68. 

Zu,  a  god  in  the  Euphrates 
valley,  104;  a  bird  god,  105; 
George  Smith  on  the  zu  bird, 
105. 

Zywie,  old  Polish  cuckoo  god- 
dess with  temple  on  Mount 
Zywiec,  116;  turned  into  a 
cuckoo,  117. 


249 


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A     000  677  112     5 


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